Hivelt stopped me. “Hold.”
I stopped walking and looked around.
“No, there is no danger. I wanted to see your face light up again.”
“What?” I laughed and felt my face grow hot.
“Working with machines. This makes you happy?”
I peeked into his eyes with a shy laugh. “Yes.”
He puffed his chest and huffed. “Keep walking. Tell me more of your story. It passes the time in a pleasant way.”
The momentary lightheartedness fled. The rest of the story wasn’t so simple.
“I waited for my father. I turned down three good employment offers, so that when he got out, we could travel together, just like old times. Find a Mining Engineer position and menial work that he was used to.” I stared into the distance, remembering. “He got out. He was out for one day, then went down a back alley. He had to meet up with someone he had heard about when he was in prison.” Dammit. My throat swelled. My eyes stung. I did not want to revisit this. I peered into the thick greenery around us. Maybe another snake would drop from the trees again. Great Spirit. Why does the hurt never leave?
We walked several paces in silence.
“Hivelt is hungry,” he announced for no reason. “Let us tear bread together.” He fished through one of his pouches for something and pulled out an oval wrapped in a soft, gray cloth. “Ah,” he said with a pleased grunt. “Sister bread.” He tore off a large chunk and offered it to me. He removed his helmet and set it aside as he plopped himself down in the middle of the path. He tore into the bread with relish and gestured I should sit.
Taken aback, I waited a second before joining him. Then, I removed my helmet and inhaled deeply of the aroma. “Oh, Hivelt …” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had real bread. I took a bite, and the chewy bread melted in my mouth like a soft pretzel. The crust had a light, crispy, salt coating, but the bread itself contained rather large broken kernels of something that tasted like mild, black pepper. It was delicious.
“Favelt-rax,” Hivelt said. “Gift from the farm.”
I ate, marveling for a moment at my life. Eating bread from an alien civilization and sitting across from a monstrous indigenous person on a planet full of treacherous wildlife, down to the tiniest microorganisms. Somehow, I was still alive, despite … everything.
I noticed him watching me, a glint in his eye and a small smile curving up from a fang. Had he done it on purpose? Hijacked the conversation to put me at ease from my obvious discomfort?
Blood rushed to my cheeks and kept my eyes down.
“Pattee,” Hivelt whispered.
I peeked up at him.
His head was cocked to the side as he sat with crossed legs and his elbows resting on his knees, his hands relaxed. One held his bread while the other was empty. “We have a saying in our language,” he said. “‘The suns have set on this day.’ It means that what has happened is over, and it is time to prepare for the morrow when the suns rise again.”
I swallowed my bite and considered his words. “What if the events of the past feel unfinished?”
Hivelt nodded and looked up through the canopy, where light dappled through multitudinous leaves and branches. “It is unsaid, but that is what the new day is for. To set things to right.” He cleared his throat and offered me the rest of his bread.
I declined.
He rewrapped it. “My queen demands more and more of her devoted hunters.” He nodded upwards. “The Ikma Scabmal Kama, ruler on Ikshe. For fifty cycles, she has devoured the seed of the hunters with no thought to our descendants. She takes and takes while my people flounder to carry on the population of Theraxl.”
My brows met my hairline, and my mouth dried up. I said nothing.
“Perhaps my talk is crass, but these are the acts of my queen.” He spat on the ground. “It is forbidden to create offspring with the queen or Younger Sister BoKama, her co-ruler. Yet she demands the seed of the mightiest hunter at every Lottery. I can see from your expression that you do not understand all of my words.”
I nodded.
He paused and scratched his chin. “The Lottery proceeds every three months, from which the names of the most productive hunters are drawn. These noble hunters are then allowed to choose a sister to mate with and produce offspring. From such couplings, in two cycle’s time, the little hunters and sisters are born. The hunters provide all sustenance the offspring might need,” he said. “I told you this before.”
I nodded again.
“But with the queen playing at her sexual games, our hunters are not creating offspring.”
I kept silent. He seemed to be heading to some revelation.
“I have participated in this abomination of the ways of the Holy Goddesses of Shegoshel. I have lain with the queen and denied the Shegoshel their rightful progeny.” He thumped his chest. He looked at me, as if to receive condemnation. He waited for me to speak.
Distressed, I licked my lips and prayed the Great Spirit would tell me what to say. “The Gods know that we are weak and sometimes subject to the whims of our rulers,” I said. “We can only hope to, uh, make things right. As you said.”
Hivelt dropped his shoulders and nodded, lowering his head.
“You speak the truth. Esra’s heart mate, Naraxthel, is the noblest of us. He refused to lie with the queen, and she banished him and four others to take a perilous journey to collect wealth from this planet. I was one of the four.” He made fists and stared at me. “I deserted my brethren, severed the truth, and pretended to be dead. All to escape the wrath and whims of the queen.” He stood, towering above me, and paced. “Without thought of consequence, without thought of my single offspring, Afarax. Indeed, without thought at all. Hivelt was wrong. I am making amends with the quest for woaiquovelt now. I hope you will journey with me and lend me your strength.” He bent and offered his open hand to me.
I stared at it. He still didn’t know the rest of my story, but he’d told me the thing that brought him shame, and he had explained his actions, blamed no one else, and seemed to offer me the same due respect he was asking for. How could I deny him? I took his hand and he pulled me up without effort.
“Thank you, Pattee Crow Flies.” He squeezed my hand. “You honor this hunter.”
I stammered, “You’re w-w-welcome.” But my mind gnawed at something he had said like a dog with a bone. What was a heart mate? How had a human ended up with an alien … mate?
While Hivelt and I replaced our helmets and resumed our hike, I kept sneaking glances at him. He was massive, self-possessed, strong, and honorable in his own way. He was a worthy companion. Could I ever see him as something more than a partner? I bit my lip and walked on. Memories played across my mind.
“I do not like how the illness dulls your eyes.”
“All that I have is yours.”
“Working with machines. This makes you happy?”
He had pulled my ship off the ledge, endangering his own life, and carried me through the night when I was dying. I owed him my life. But I didn’t owe him my love. A little pang twisted in my heart. But I was familiar with the pain of the heart.
Thanks, Dad.
39
Curiosity burned in my heart-home. What had happened to Pattee’s sire? What had she done that she was reluctant to tell me? But while it burned bright like a flame, I would not press her. Let her share pieces of her soul with Hivelt when she was ready.
Instead, I tried to reach Naraxthel over comms.
“Naraxthel, here is Hivelt.” Nothing. “Naraxthel, it is I, Hivelt.” We walked on. I turned to Pattee. “Have you news from your technology? Has Esra communicated with you?”
“No, nothing.”
I grunted. “Raxthezana, it is I, Hivelt. What news?”
“We grow tired of waiting. Our rations dwindle,” he said. “We will leave Moon Shield to hunt for a time, then return. Where are you?”
“We travel north through the Bladed Forest,” I said. “We are try
ing to locate the place we lost contact with Naraxthel. We should be there soon.” I paused, then cleared my throat. “We passed the place of the pazathel-nax ambush.”
Raxthezana grunted.
My face flamed, and I forced a swallow. “I am sorry.” What else was there to say? I ate the shame; it was a bitter flavor but seasoned with a lightness when I looked over at Pattee beside me. Hope.
“The suns have set on that day,” he said. “When you join us, we will become strong as a double-forged blade of woaiquovelt.”
“May the Life of Shegoshel shine upon us and our offspring,” I said.
“May the death of our enemies bring peaceful slumber,” he replied.
I sighed and turned toward Pattee.
She tilted her head. “You were able to reach your companions?”
“Yes. I spoke with Raxthezana. He travels with Natheka and Raxkarax.” My stomach rumbled. Had I not just eaten? I found the jerked meat and offered a piece to Pattee.
She declined.
I bit and chewed, puzzling on our lack of communication with Esra and Naraxthel. Scrutiny of the ikfal around me revealed upheaval this far north of the glade. I spotted uprooted trees and ground swells within veltiks of my old trail. A landquake of this extent had never been witnessed on Ikthe. If the landquake had reached this distance, what of my hunter-brother and his mate?
A feeling of wrongness pervaded the hunting grounds. With each step, a tension pulled me faster onward. They were in danger. “Can you run again? The Goddesses whisper to me that Naraxthel and Esra might be in peril.”
Her brows wrinkled and her face paled. “I’m worried about them too. Let’s go.”
Crackling in my helmet.
“Rebooting. Please standby.”
“VELMA!” Pattee faced me as she placed her hand on the side of her helmet.
“A disturbance in the nanosatellite array caused a disruption and drew my attention,” VELMA announced in my helmet, and I presumed in Pattee’s as well. “Have you found Esra and Naraxthel?”
“No,” Pattee said. “We’re headed that way. We’re worried.”
“Here are updated coordinates of my last contact with them,” VELMA said. The digits displayed in my helmet.
I recognized them. “Ah, the Plain of Ancient Ice,” I said. “Pattee, I will carry you now.”
She frowned and opened her mouth, no doubt to protest, but I grasped her fingers.
“They are near the rokhural nesting sites. We must away.”
After another moment of silent resistance, she slumped and nodded. She hoisted herself upon my back and looped her legs through my arms without argument.
Pleased she could see reason, I ran.
The suns approached nightfall. We would run most of the night, and, I hoped, arrive before it was too late.
40
I was poised to carry Esra with my stealth settings at full, but warnings lit up my visor as the camouflage mode disabled once again. I looked down to see my red armor shine through caked mud, and then spied one of the rokhura raise its head and lock eyes on me. I whispered to Esra to run and drew my sun-blade.
I waved my sword to draw its attention away from Esra’s flight, and when she disappeared up the inclined tunnel to the outside, I prepared for battle.
I counted five adults, just as in the previous nest. The one that had seen me still hadn’t moved.
I watched and listened for her hohijopa—throat sac—to signal her sisters, but her sac hung flaccid.
Why did she not alert the others?
I held steady. The Ikthekal did not make habit of killing the nesting rokhural or the eggs. To find a deserted nest was considered a gift from the Goddesses, and such eggs were considered a delicacy on Ikshe, but to kill the nesting sisters and their young was frowned upon.
If this sister did not advance, I might leave without staining my blade.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement.
Esra! She stood in the alcove leading to the cavern.
“Do not return, Esra,” I spoke inside my helmet. “I will come to you.”
“Be careful,” she whispered in my ear.
“Careful is for the jokapazathel,” I muttered. I tightened my fingers around my hilt. My next move would determine the intent of the rokhura. Once she raised the alarm, I would once again face a pack of vicious death-bringers. I crouched.
She cocked her head.
“VELMA, are you activated?” If Esra’s technology could circumvent my damaged circuitry, I could still leave unscathed.
Nothing.
I took a breath. I took a step.
The rokhura tracked my movement. I saw her hohijopa shiver, but it didn’t inflate.
I took another step toward the exit.
She craned her neck. A large eye peered at me. Her hohijopa partially inflated and rumbled. It seemed to be more of a question than a beckoning.
Keeping eye contact, I took a few more steps toward the alcove and Esra.
The head of another rokhura popped up over the mound of eggs.
My breath froze in my lungs.
It hadn’t seen me yet. The sister rokhura was answering the first one’s questing bellow. Her gaze roved across the dim cavern. A rokhura that had battled with Theraxl before knew the sun-blade, knew the armored hunters. Any recognition would bring the pack down upon me.
I swallowed.
She didn’t see me. She gave an answering grumble and lowered her head. Ah, the first one must be a young dam. She didn’t know what to make of me.
I retreated more, moving farther away from her eggs, making myself less of a threat.
Her sac shivered, and she turned her head to observe me with her other eye. She watched me until I disappeared into the alcove, where Esra waited with her pale face.
She grasped my hand, and we ran up the incline, heedless of tumbling gravel, eager to be free of the lair and the danger within. We broke the surface but stumbled to a clumsy stop.
Two approaching rokhural gamboled veltiks away from the entrance, and they saw us in the wan light of predawn. Their throat sacs swelled, and their roars shuttered my ears with their pressure. They called to the others, both above and below the nest.
“Esra, bear this weapon. Stay at my back.” I pressed my dagger’s hilt into her outstretched hand. “Today you will become the second most decorated hunter of the Theraxl.”
41
The first sun broke over the trees, and the orange fusion of flaming star and treetops alight from its glow lent a surreal haze to the scene in front of me.
Naraxthel’s blade caught an orange blush of the sunrise and sparked when he brandished it before the charging rokhural.
My hand sweat inside my glove, but my grip on the borrowed hilt was firm. I had fought one to the death. It didn’t mean I was ready to face off with more, but Red and I had shared precious weeks together. We fought together, and, if necessary, we would die together. My lips in a grim line, I crouched and eyed the sloped entrance to the nest.
At any moment, the protective dinosaurs might climb out to participate in the battle.
Mouth dry, jaw tight, and shoulders tense, I waited for Red’s commands.
“To the south of the cenote!”
I ran around the huge opening in the ground with Red close at my heels. Now, its entrance was between us and the rokhural with billowing sacs. I heard nothing but imagined the roars, much as I had done as a child, imagining the sounds of prehistoric battles when looking at old books.
The rokhural slowed, crouching in a stalk but pacing near the gaping hole.
The wild jungle was at our backs.
“Stay at my back, Esra,” he said through my helmet. “You guard the rear.”
His confidence in me swelled my heart. I would fight to the death to protect my heart mate. Tears sprang to my eyes at the thought, but I blinked them back. We would both fight to the death, but we would rather stay alive.
“The sires are loath to leave the cenote
’s opening,” he reported. “They flounder. Stay on guard.”
“I will, Red.”
He rumbled in my ear. “My heart mate. Doikshezadu.”
“I love you, too.” My voice was husky in my ears. I scanned the tree line as the second sun rose and the light doubled across the pale peach sky.
The ground trembled beneath my boots.
Heart racing, I half-expected VELMA to—
“BPM approaching 145,” she said in my ear. “Do you require assistance?”
“Um, possibly.” I chanced a look behind me at Red facing off with two giant rokhural. Their sacs billowed like full sails in a gale force wind. So far, no others had joined them. “VELMA, what happened? Where did you go?”
“Disrupted neural networks called me away. I have patched the problem for now.”
“That sounds ominous,” I muttered.
Movement caught my attention just to my left as I faced the southern jungle. A giant rokhura cracked through the trees. “Red, they’ve got help.”
“Rokhura’s weakest spot is the hohijopa, the throat sac, as you have already learned,” he said, his voice tightening. “A desperate warrior might throw her weapon to lance it. Remain at my back.”
“Okay, thanks,” I rasped. My heart jumped to my throat as the woods parted and more rokhural erupted from it, their sacs all swelling, and yet the region remained as quiet as a summer’s day.
I counted six. They approached with caution now, seeing us poised at the entrance to their prized nesting grounds.
I bent my knees and stood on the balls of my feet as Red had shown me not that long ago. What hope did I have against this many? If only we had his brothers to help. But I pushed those thoughts away and focused.
The one nearest me stalked. Each step of its four-footed body brought it a yard closer. It seemed to be smelling the air.
“Red, what are your dinos doing?”
“They watch and wait,” he said. “They guard the opening. I dare not turn my back on them.”
Tracked on Predator Planet (Predator Planet Series) Page 21
