Pursued

by Ivy Cross

  “What the fuck are they doing?” Mayna asks, not taking her eyes from the group across the room.

  “They are toying with the corpse of a female Valat,” I reply. “The Valat males are base and animal-like. They often kill the females when they have outlived their usefulness—and sometimes before.”

  Mayna spits. “Disgusting filthy beasts.”

  She does not whisper these words.

  The four Valat males whirl around to the sound of her voice. Two of the creatures break out in a full run, brandishing their crude clubs with clear intent.

  Mayna puts a bolt between the eyes of the one on the left. The creature sprawls to the dirt, its lanky limbs flailing out and tangling with the legs of the warrior running next to it. With a loud shriek, the other one topples to the floor as well, sliding almost the full distance to Mayna’s feet.

  I leave her to finish with the fallen Valat and spring across the distance to the other two. They are unmasked and unarmed, so I sheath my weapon before engaging.

  The beasts rush forward as one. Their maws gape open to show their collection of hideous broken yellow teeth, as they try to get near enough to sink them into my flesh.

  I catch the one on the right with a firm kick to the chest, crushing the bone like the flesh of an overripe gourd. The thing gurgles to the ground and dies in an instant.

  The other Valat gets close enough to rake its short, jagged claws across my upper arm. The bright lines of burning pain only serve to increase my focus.

  My hand shoots out and locks onto the creature’s throat. Its thin, sinewy body seems to weigh almost nothing as I pull it off its feet to stare into its eyes.

  “There should have been more,” Mayna says, stepping up from behind.

  I snap the Valat’s neck and watch as the life leaves its body. They are vile creatures, yes, but they still draw from the same pool of life as the rest of us. Their defeat will add to my essence, just as one day mine will add to that of the warrior who comes to fell me.

  “There should have been,” I agree. “The horde tends to group together at most times but, even if not, that ruckus should have brought any stragglers down on us by now.”

  Almost as though summoned by my words, a lone Valat warrior bursts into the room and scoots to a halt before us. It too is without its mask, and its close-set yellow eyes give it a look of some cunning. That, plus its above-average size, marks it out as the alpha of this warren.

  “No weapons,” I say to Mayna as I step to the side. This is to be her fight and hers alone. It is the reason we are here—for her to prove herself in battle while facing her greatest fear.

  “I am not blind,” Mayna replies. The heat in her words is a clear indication that she still feels the tension from this place.

  She hooks her boltbow to a loop on her leathers, then steps forward, lowering her stance and center of gravity and preparing to grapple with the Valat leader.

  The beast drops back into a crouch with the fluidity of a mud eel. It bares its teeth and makes a grating, hiss-like sound.

  Valat are not usually very large, but they make up for their lack of size with unparalleled speed. This one, however, is larger than any I have seen. Mayna is tall for a woman, only a little more than a head shorter than me, but she is only about a hand’s breadth taller than this alpha.

  The Valat lunges forward without warning, its clawed hand becoming a blur as it takes a swipe at Mayna’s face. She pulls back out of reach at the last moment, then tries to grab for the Valat, but it dances back from her with ease.

  Fast and large…

  Mayna lets out a loud roar and presses forward, moving the Valat farther back toward the dirt wall at the side of the room. The creature darts a glance back, as though aware she is trying to pin it in.

  I have fought enough Valat in my day to understand there is something unique about this one. Most of their warriors are mindless drones, prone to flinging themselves into battle with almost no consideration for strategy or self-preservation.

  This Valat alpha, by the other token, has a surprising shrewdness. I would not go so far as to say intelligence, but there is form in the creature’s footwork and a kind of caution in its eyes. Even as Mayna pushes the Valat back, it sidesteps subtly, making her efforts less effective.

  Mayna sees the same things I do and gives up on the sly approach. She lunges forward, using the whole of her considerable height and grabs for the Valat. Her move is fast, blindingly so, but the Valat still drops back out of reach in time—barely.

  In its franticness, the Valat smashes into the stacked stone support in the middle of the wall. The force is great enough to send the large stones toppling over, bringing down a spray of packed soil and rocks from the wall and ceiling in that section. Large clods continue to pour down until the dazed Valat is nearly covered.

  Mayna shrieks, falls back hard on her rump, then skitters back from the falling debris. “Cave-in! Cave-in!” Her voice is shrill and shines with horror.

  The dirt has already stopped its downward flow, but it is clear by her wide, wild eyes that Mayna cannot see more than her fear will let her.

  “Mayna!” I shout. “Slow your breathing. Calm your—”

  “Get out!” she wails. “We must get out of here now!”

  It is too late. The Valat alpha shakes off its cloak of dirt and rubble and pounces atop the stricken warrior. Its sharp claws go to work immediately, tearing at the soft flesh of Mayna’s throat and face.

  I step forward, then stop myself.

  Honor dictates that I allow this to play itself out. Mayna engaged the beast one-to-one as a way to prove her worth as a warrior and a potential guard under my command. We would both be dishonored if I stepped in to save her.

  She will either find honor in victory… or in death.

  Mayna tries to shove the creature off of her, but her arms wobble with panic and the Valat clings on. She does not cry out in pain but, from the look in her eyes, I doubt she even feels it. Her mind has cast her back to that fateful day of her youth—has again trapped her in a night-dark prison of dirt and stone. Of helplessness.

  I watch in horror as the Valat hammers its fists down again and again, the sound a perverse imitation of the drumbeat from our season-end celebrations. As terrible as it is, I am honor-bound to observe—to do less would be an insult to Mayna.

  Something just at the threshold of my awareness, a small sound or flash of color, causes me to look up toward one of the tunnels that exit the chamber.

  What I see nearly stops my heart. Covered in shadow and crouching low is the specter of the woman I once knew. The woman I failed. The woman I let die. I know her in an instant.

  My love. Llea.

  “Help her!” she commands.

  I have no choice in this matter.

  Honor be damned. I will not fail her again.

  Chapter 2 – Bailey

  With long, tall, and ugly on his way down the tunnel, I waste no time and spring into action.

  And then straight over onto my face.

  “Fucking aliens.”

  Thumps, thuds, and the occasional shriek still streak down the tunnel to me from whatever the hell is happening with the creatures in one of the other areas. If ever there were a time for escape, it has got to be right now.

  I roll over onto my back and sit up. All I need to do is untie my feet… I can figure out my hands when I’m way the hell away from this creepy place.

  I slide my hands down to the coarse plant fiber binding on my legs. Its tightly knotted, but it doesn’t look overly complicated.

  I’ve never been one for long fingernails. Some of my friends—my friends back in the old days before my life became a particularly mean-spirited episode of Lost in Space—used to treat their nails like an artist’s canvas, painstakingly honing the edges and cultivating a specific length, then painting all sorts of wild-ass shit onto them.

  Me? I just liked to lop them off so they wouldn’t get in the way when I used my phone.
>
  But, as I dig out the knot in the bindings and fling the thing off my legs, this is one time I’m grateful the little bastards have grown out again. If I manage to get out of this place alive, maybe I’ll even paint little green aliens on them to commemorate the occasion…

  I grab the torch from the wall with my still bound hands, then start the journey down the hall. The fire from the torch will remove all possibility of stealth, but maybe I’ll be able to use it to fight off any of the beasts… or whatever it is that’s attacking them.

  Either way, it feels good to have a weapon in my hands.

  By the time I’m most of the way down the long hall-like tunnel, the sounds of chaos have completely stopped. No more screams or grunts. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. At least with the sounds of battle still raging, walking through this dirt hallway seemed a little less like creeping through some ancient abandoned catacomb with only a dim torch for company.

  When I reach the first turn, I start to hear something again. It sounds like someone smacking dough against a countertop… only more brutal. It’s definitely not a welcoming sound, but there’s no other way to go.

  I steel myself, sucking in a long breath, then slide around the corner as quietly as humanly possible.

  The scene on the other side is not exactly what I was expecting. My yellow-eyed abductor is on top of an extremely tall and slender woman, pummeling her with every ounce of his strength. The strange female doesn’t even seem to be trying to fight back. Her eyes are wide and staring, but they are looking past the thrashing beast-man straddling her, almost like she’s unaware of his presence.

  That would be pretty strange by itself, but it’s the other alien in the room that takes the cake. He kind of looks like something out of one of those old late-night cable flicks about warrior cavemen. Only, he’s a hell of a lot bigger, and a hell of a lot prettier than any primitive caveman type has any right of being.

  His presence isn’t at all strange, considering his female counterpart on the floor, but the fact that he’s just standing there watching the bloody beatdown is pretty damned odd. The stern features of his face seem to be in flux, flitting between concern and a kind of blank daydreaming.

  He doesn’t seem at all aware of my presence.

  My abductor slams another fist into the fallen female, the loud crack enough to snap me back to myself. The woman is bloodied and battered, but clearly still alive… for now.

  I can’t just stand here and let this happen.

  I take a single tentative step forward, and the male warrior’s eyes snap onto me and lock me in place. His stern-looking mouth parts a little, then drops completely open. He shakes his head several times, almost like he thinks he can shift back into place whatever it is that made me appear to him.

  It would be sort of comical if his friend weren’t being mauled to death on the dirt floor.

  “Help her!”

  “Llea.” His voice is hoarse like he has been yelling a lot, and the expression in his eyes is pained and far away. But he finally moves into action.

  He strides over and plucks Ol’ Yellow Eyes off the female with almost no discernable effort. The beast flails and snarls, its long hairy limbs smacking uselessly against the huge warrior’s bare chest.

  Llea must be the woman on the floor. I mean, there’s no one else around. But the warrior’s actions and expressions seem out of sync with what’s going on here. It’s almost as if he’s seeing something else entirely.

  The warrior female on the floor rises shakily to a sitting position. Her eyes are still white and wild, but she looks to be more aware than her friend.

  “Atrae…” she whispers.

  Atrae doesn’t notice, he only stands there letting the beastly alien punch and scratch against his massive, muscular chest.

  For a moment, I think his eyes are glowing red, but when the tears spill over, I realize it’s just the torchlight reflecting there.

  “No,” he says in a faraway voice. “No.” The word comes again with an ache and anger this time.

  “No!” With this final roar, the warrior flings my kidnapper across the room and straight into the wall. Its contact with the wall makes a sound like a concussive blast, sending dirt and stone raining down from the wall.

  The creature doesn’t move again, and there’s no question that it's dead. Nothing could have survived that impact—it would have been like being hit by a bus doing sixty on the highway.

  I realize I’ve been frozen halfway between my next step throughout this whole display. And with neither of the warrior aliens paying much attention to me so far, I start to wonder if the smart thing might be to creep back the way I came. These new guys definitely don’t look as frightening as the dead owl-eyed alien, but the big guy has his own kind of scary… The kind of scary that says he might wig out at any moment and dash me against a wall like a reverse piñata.

  I take a glacially slow step back, not even daring to turn around and look behind me. These new aliens did me a massive favor and, if I can wait them out, maybe I’ll actually get out of this place relatively unscathed.

  And go where, exactly? One step at a time, Bailey. Now is no time for rational questions.

  “Atrae, you should not have…” The female’s words trail off as I take another few steps back.

  The male warrior walks over to stand above his fallen friend. He shakes his head like he’s trying to get the scattered marbles to slot back into their respective holes, his long black hair dancing back and forth across his knitted brow.

  He stoops to help the woman from the floor and freezes halfway through the action. His dark eyes latch onto mine with a physical weight.

  Shit.

  “Halt!”

  The female on the floor and I both jump at the same time, startled by the warrior’s sudden shout.

  Half of my body wants to bolt, and the other half is rooted to the ground like an ancient oak tree. It doesn’t matter anyway. There’s no place to run and the big guy looks like he’s built for speed.

  I drop the torch and hold my bound hands out and above my head like he’s a policeman with a gun trained on me. “I—I come in peace,” I stutter.

  God, what’s next? Take me to your leader?

  The warrior beckons me toward him with the fingers of one of his dinner-plate-sized hands.

  I obey immediately and stumble forward in their direction, nearly tripping over the torch. As I near, both aliens narrow their eyes at me, then give each other a quizzical look.

  “What are you?” the female asks. Her words are somewhat distorted by the swelling in her face, but if she notices the damage inflicted by the now-dead beastie, she does a really good job of hiding it.

  “Naia?” the male warrior, Atrae, says. His voice is hushed, but there is a clear undercurrent of excitement in his words.

  “Human,” I respond. “My name is Bailey. Bailey Mallory.”

  Jeez, why don’t I just curtsey or hand over my identifying papers…

  “I came down with my people in some escape pods.”

  “Came down…”

  “Uh, we fell from the sky in round ships of metal.” I hold up my hands and try to approximate the egg shape of the escape pod. The warrior aliens just continue to look at me like I’m an idiot.

  “It speaks the civilized tongue,” the female says. “But it spouts only nonsense.”

  “She.” Atrae corrects immediately. His eyes slide up and down my body with a tangible force, and he goes so long without saying anything else, I start to fidget.

  Finally, the female warrior rises gingerly to her feet. She’s not as big as Atrae, not by a long shot, but she still towers above me.

  “As far as Provings go, this could have gone little worse.” She speaks slowly, as though working out a problem at the same time. “But perhaps all is not lost.” She eyes me with almost the same level of intensity as Atrae. “We do have a prize to bring back… and you know how Jaha loves his prizes.”

  Chapter 3
– Bailey

  “You must move more quickly!” the female warrior, Mayna, barks back down the slope at me. “At this rate, it will take us a night and a day to get back to our village!”

  I grab a mottled orange root and try to clamber up the steep hillside on all fours. Thankfully, Mayna saw fit to remove my wrist bindings. Apparently, she doesn’t see me as much of a threat. But on the flip side, we’ve been scampering through this weird-ass forest of shiny trees for at least four hours, and she has been squawking at me the entire time. Move faster! Watch your footwork! Your clumsiness brings us all dishonor!

  I’m starting to think the alien Atrae smashed into the wall got the better deal, all things considered…

  What makes it worse is how easy Mayna and Atrae makes this all look. They strode up the hillside like it was an escalator and haven’t made a single misstep or even broken sweat, as far as I can see.

  This fucking hill is like an escalator for me, too. Only, it’s on maximum speed and moving in the wrong damn direction.

  After what feels like an hour, I inch my way to the top of the hill, panting so hard I fear I might suck in a clump of the fur-like moss that covers nearly everything.

  I heave myself back to standing and look back down the hill. From here it doesn’t look all that bad. Maybe I should have stuck with those Tae Bo DVDs… I’m really out of shape.

  I turn to find Mayna shaking her head and giving me a disgusted look. “Pathetic.”

  “Well, excuse me. I’m not a fifteen-foot-tall Amazonian who probably runs marathons to relax. You can blame that on my parents—I come from a long line of layabouts and idlers… kind of a tradition, now that I think about it. My cousin was all-state in power napping.”

  Mayna turns with a huff and continues the trek behind Atrae, her long, muscular legs eating up the distance in a way that makes me tired just watching.

  She’s really not that bad. At least, I don’t think she is. I get the sense that this whole we do not show weakness and all for honor rigmarole is just how her people think. I’m pretty sure she isn’t all that irritated with me.