by Corin Cain
Well, they don’t call it a harem for nothing!
I try not to think about that part of it, but it’s hard not to. Jade and Anna used to make me blush more than once when they spoke of their Aurelian master and his passionate mating frenzies.
He can’t really be as big as they claimed! They must have been exaggerating.
A gut-wrenching klaxon suddenly screams out, breaking me from my lustful thoughts.
Oh, shit! It’s a sound that hasn’t been heard in Barl for over a decade. I drop my wrench instinctively - in innate, primordial terror – and it clinks against the ground.
I’d heard that sound before as a child, but never in Barl. Scorp never land this close to a city. The creatures might be beasts, but they have a strange cunning – as if they can sense which cities have formidable anti-air defenses.
“It’s a false alarm. It has to be!” It’s Edgar, his voice brave. Despite his claim, though, he lumbers towards the cabinet where he keeps his rifle.
I swallow hard, my nerves shaking. I pray that he’s right. Scorp have never come this close to a major city, but those klaxons are warning us of an imminent attack. I just hope Edgar’s right – and it’s just some accidental triggering of the warning system.
Suddenly, the ground shakes so hard my bones rattle. My stomach drops as I comprehend the horrific reality of the situation. I can feel the anti-air batteries firing as I hear the shots. The thuds hit me like a punch. The air explodes into thunder-claps as the anti-air defenses boom out their challenge to the sky. My hand shakes as I pick the wrench up from the floor.
It’s not a false alarm. The Scorp are really coming!
I stare at the wrench in my hand. As a weapon, it’ll be next to useless against a half-reptile, half-human, ten-foot-tall Scorp Warrior. Nevertheless, it feels cool and hard in my hand – and if nothing else, it grants me a sense of false security.
Clutching the wrench, I run out of the shop and into the cool evening air to witness the spectacle.
My jaw drops. I’ve never felt a horror this pure and visceral - not since I was told the news that my village had been destroyed by that Scorp attack; and that I’d never see my parents again.
Now I was facing the same nightmare that had taken them from me.
As I stand there, I feel my body rocked. The anti-air batteries are firing shot after shot into the air, rounds tracing through the evening sky. A single Scorp organic ship would be turned into pulp by this barrage.
But it isn’t just one Scorp ship.
It’s…
One… Two… Ten…?
Oh, Gods – there’s too many!
The Scorp ships fall like hideous, corrupted raindrops from the sky. The huge, organic, egg-shaped capsules of the Scorp plummet down from the heavens, punching through the atmosphere. I know that each contains at least a hundred lethal, venomous warriors – and a thirty-foot-tall Scorp Queen.
That’s how they infest new planets - traveling blindly through space from Gods-know-where to constantly propagate their disgusting species. If even one of those gruesome ships penetrates the anti-air defenses and lands in this city, it’s going to be a bloodbath.
A huge round from an anti-air battery rips a shot through a Scorp ship looming overhead. I squint my eyes and watch as reptilian bodies pour out of the tear – falling freely into the atmosphere above. Those ones will splatter against the ground and die… but many more will take their place.
Screams fill the streets as people stare up, transfixed. As one, they run in a panicked mass, fleeing into their homes and businesses, and desperately barricading the windows and locking their doors to anyone foolish enough to remain in the streets.
There’s no humanity left – no rational thought. People are stampeding as if they’re nothing but frightened animals.
Mind you – maybe that’s better than just standing there gawking, like I am.
To demonstrate that, a huge man barrels into me, knocking me to the ground hard enough so that my teeth rattle. His eyes were wide and thoughtless as he bulldozed past me – like a crazed beast. I watch him flee desperately down the street as I pick myself up from the ground.
Dusting myself off, I try to think…
But what is there to think about? I’m as helpless as everybody else. I can’t do anything except retreat back to the shop in a daze. Edgar stands near the doorway, his rifle in his white-knuckled hands. He knows what the anti-air batteries mean as well as I do. The old man’s hands tremble as he sees my expression.
“How many?” He yells the question like an order.
I try to tell him… I try to form words…
…but suddenly, I can’t make a sound.
It’s as if my mouth doesn’t work. My body feels paralyzed. I want to scream, to fall to my knees and cry out at the insanity and horror of life.
Instead, I grip the wrench as tightly as possible, trying to cling to my mind and sanity in this terrifying world. As Edgar rants, I shake my head slowly – my lips quivering in wordless fear.
Edgar steps closer. He grabs my shoulders and shakes me, but I feel nothing. “How many, dammit?” Spittle flies in my face, but I still can’t find the words to answer him. Instead, I move aside, and he brushes past me with a snarl – into the city streets to find the answer out for himself.
Seconds later he returns, slamming the door behind him. It shakes in its frame. Round after round of anti-air batteries continue to thunder in the sky, and the walls of the workshop shudder as each one explodes; as if they might fall and obliterate us instead of the Scorp ships.
If they did, it would be a merciful fate – at least compared to that of being dragged, shuddering and screaming, to a Scorp Queen. I always felt that the phrase ‘a fate worse than death’ was overwrought; but not so for the victims of the she-bitch matriarch of a Scorp nest.
As the booms continue, dust falls from the ceiling, landing in my hair.
“I’ve fought Scorp before, Tammy.” It’s Edgar, and I’m not sure if he’s trying to reassure me, or convince himself. “Hold it together. We’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Edgar might be saying it’s all going to be okay, but the way he clutches his rifle harder demonstrates that he doesn’t believe it.
He’s lying to me, and to himself.
And the worst thing? We both know it. We both know that no one can stand up to that many vicious, rampaging Scorp.
Unless, by some miracle, the troops of the Capital are screaming this way right now in their heli-ships, every citizen of Barl is going to be dragged by Scorp warriors to that ‘fate worse than death’ I was just talking about.
I stare at Edgar’s rifle, and he looks down at it slowly. If it’s the choice between a bullet to the skull and being dragged – kicking and screaming – into a Scorp ship, I know which one I’d choose. Those dragged before a Scorp Queen were first crippled, and then held down – to be impregnated by the Queen’s eggs. Once inside you, those eggs would soon hatch and release hundreds of squirming larvae, who’d begin devouring your still living body from within…
Hell, no. I’d take the bullet any day.
I swallow hard, but my mouth is dry. I grip the wrench tighter, and anger flares through me.
No, dammit! No! I’ll not take the easy way out.
I’ll fight until my last fucking breath!
Then the true panic hits me. I’d only been thinking of my own life, selfishly. Then I remember that there are four children who depend on me. The street kids live in the abandoned building three blocks down. Stacy, Tod, Tyler and Runner have been able to survive on the mean streets of Barl, but they won’t last a second against Scorp warriors.
Those street brats might not be my biological children, but I still feel a deep responsibility for them. I run towards the door, willing to brave the danger of the streets if they’re at stake…
…but Edgar suddenly grabs my arm and yanks me to a halt.
“I know what you’re trying to do, Tammy �
�� but if you go out there, I can’t keep you safe. You’re no fucking use to them dead, you understand?”
I know I must look wild and crazy, but I have to convince Edgar this is a rational choice. I try to think up an argument, but if words fail… then the wrench in my hand will have to do the trick instead.
Nothing is going to stop me from helping those four orphaned children – who are probably quaking in fear this very moment. If the price of reaching them it to knock Edgar out… Well, it’ll probably be more merciful to him than facing the Scorp while conscious, anyway.
“Edgar, I have to help them. I have to. They’re out there, alone. They… They don’t know what a Scorp attack is like. They won’t survive without me!” My voice has a dark, stressed tone to it, and I know how desperate I must sound.
Edgar shakes his head and looks me straight in the eye. “You’re not thinking straight, Tammy. You know as well as I do that those four troublemakers are scattered all over the city during the day. You have no idea where any of them are right now – but they know where you work. They’ll come here, Tammy. When they do, you need to be here to help them. They trust you.”
I hate that his words make sense. I can’t honestly tell if he’s saying this because it’s the truth, or just because he knows it’s the one argument that will stop me from charging out of the door with nothing but a wrench to fight off the Scorp horde.
All I do know is that he’s saying it because he cares. No matter how gruff Edgar is in the shop, or how badly he insults or pushes me to work faster, he’s always been protective of me.
But what if the kids don’t come here? What if they’re hiding out in some nook or cranny, quivering in fear? What if they run back to their home in the abandoned building to hide out?
A thousand ‘what if’ questions cloud my mind. I imagine instead the only thing I do know for sure – the image of those Scorp Warriors pouring out of their huge organic ships, their pincer claws ripping through the thick webbing of their vessels, rending holes for the beasts to wriggle out of into the freedom of our world.
Once loose, those loathsome creatures will snatch up any still-living humans to drag back to their Queen.
When Edgar sees that I’m not going to run out, he releases my arm. Rifle in one hand, he crosses the room and latches the door shut with the other – sealing it with a finality that feels like the closing of a coffin.
“Tammy, they will come here. If… I mean when they knock, I’ll open the door. Anybody or anything else that touches that door, though – the first fucking thing they’ll have going through their mind is a bullet.” Edgar’s voice is a grim premonition. He holds the rifle in his practiced hands.
As full of bluster as Edgar is, he knows how to use that thing. I wouldn’t want to be the first Scorp Warrior to rush through the door. Anything coming through there is going to be dead in Edgar’s sights.
A sudden wave of premature guilt hits me. If, somehow, I manage to survive this attack – but those four children don’t – I know I’ll experience the true meaning of darkness.
If I survive.
If.
2
Forn
I tear a bite of flesh from the fresh kill, relishing in the flavor of the bloody meat in my mouth. It has none of the acrid flavor of the game near our jungle home. Lately, kills in the jungle have left a sour, almost rotten taste in my mouth. I swallow the meat and my cough wracks me. My lungs are on fire, and the blood I cough up is my own.
My abs ache from the constant cough, but I stop myself from doubling over. I sit tall, showing no weakness to my triad as my eyes constantly search the plains for any signs of impending attack. I gasp for air, breathing in the coldness of the evening and feeling renewed. The cough dissipates after five heartbeats, much quicker than the hours I spent hacking in the darkness of my cave home. I smile, enjoying the feeling of being able to breathe clearly. There are few things better in life than fresh air after you’ve been denied the taste of it, water after your throat is wracked with thirst, or hunger after your empty belly aches.
There’s only one sensation greater than filling your lungs with fresh air, after gasping for breath for so long.
The sensation of being with your mate.
Soon, we will earn her. But first, we must find a new home for our tribe – far from the pain and sickness of our old home.
“Your cough improves. Chief Rattler was right. We need to find a new spot for our tribe to live – one in the fresh air that cures the sickness.” Hadone’s voice is calm as he speaks.
His voice may sound calm, but I know that inside he’s worried. I can feel the tendrils of stress through the Bond. The two Aurelians at the fire with me have been in my mind for almost the entirety of my two-hundred-and-fifty years of life, and through the power of our telepathic Bond, I know their auras almost as well as my own mind.
Hadone and Darok had suffered the same sickness as I was recovering from, but they’d healed just two days after we departed our cave in search of a safe new home for our tribe. We’d struck out in a new direction – knowing the northlands were filled with violent mountain Aurelians, known for their unpredictability. To the south were the lush and lavish lands of the soft tribes – the ones that bask in warmth and fight with long ranged arrows. We call them soft – but they guard their territory jealously.
My Scorp-Blood tribe had lived underground – but now our cavernous home is a shadow of what it once was. There once was a time when it was filled with laughter, the sound of children merely playing at war, and the sight of healthy women with bellies fat with child.
But the women and children were the ones hit the hardest by the strange new sickness; and that was a cruelty that cut especially deep.
Each of the women in our tribe was mated to a triad of Scorp-Blood warriors; and had been won through glorious battle to prove the triad’s worth to our God. In our culture, we earn our mates by defeating great creatures and dragging their heads back to our Orb-God, who grants us a portal to find our triad’s fated mate – but only if the Orb-God deigns our sacrifice worthy.
For that reason, the death of any one of our tribe’s women is a senseless tragedy; because of the sacrifices made to bring her here.
When our tribe loses a woman, we all mourn – and for the triad who lose her, the pain is especially raw. That’s why this sickness is especially cruel.
I remembered the sight of women, children, and once-proud warriors laying on the floors of our cave in agony. In our tribe’s weakened state, we needed to find a safe home before we could all risk travelling together as a group.
But finding a new home is not an easy task – for there are ravenous, massive beasts that roam every corner of this planet. That’s why they’d sent us to seek it – a strong, Scorp-blooded triad of warriors.
Darok swallows a huge chunk of meat, then spits it out with distaste. “We should be proving ourselves, not searching for a home,” he growls, his voice edged with frustration.
Darok’s always been a dour one. Being in unfamiliar territory is putting him on edge. Still, I wouldn’t change anything about him. His aura is strong in my mind, steadfast and realistic. Though he could never be mistaken for an optimist, he brings balance to our triad.
Hadone rips a huge chunk of meat with his teeth, chewing noisily in the night air. “First, we find a home for our tribe. Then, we prove ourselves worthy in a Scorp nest.” Hadone speaks of proving ourselves – of finding and slaying an offering worthy of our Orb-God – with an eagerness I don’t share.
His curly black hair gives him boyish good looks that have gotten him in trouble with some of the older Aurelians. There was recently a scandal with a triad of fish-eating Aurelians – those who prefer to fish by the rivers, instead of hunting game like the rest of us. We don’t talk about what happened, but it never leaves our shared mind. There’s been a darkness to Hadone ever since that… incident – and he’d chased battle and death far too eagerly ever since.
That…
scandal prompted us to move away from our tribal home forty years ago, and it lead to the fish-eating Aurelians of our tribe being banished from the ancient home in disgrace.
Darok, Hadone and I were living far away when the horn called us back to our people, and discovered the tragedy of this strange sickness necessitated that we aid our tribe in seeking a new home.
My smile disappears.
Out in our own home – away from the cave of our tribe – we’d been training for forty years, honing our fighting ability – all in anticipation of proving ourselves to the Orb-God.
But even with all the preparation in the world, few Aurelian triads ever return from the darkness of the Scorp nests.
Many try. Many die. It’s the greatest honor known among our race; that of bringing the head of a Scorp Queen back to our Orb-God. A suitable sacrifice will grant our dearest wish:
A mate. The only thing sweeter than the air I breathe. I know our mate is out there, somewhere in the universe – and I’m coming for you, my pet.
Something stirs inside me. The longing. The deep, constant, never-ending dissatisfaction in my life. Though I’m united with my blood-brothers – bonded to my triad by battle, not birth – I nevertheless still feel alone.
I know that until I prove myself worthy to the Orb-God, my life will have no meaning. I’ll never experience the only true bliss possible to an Aurelian of the Scorp-Blood tribe; that of siring and raising children. I need to find us a challenge worthy of our Orb-God, so he can grant us a mate.
But not yet. I am the leader of my triad. It is I who decides when we are ready to go into our most dangerous battle. We have a mission to accomplish first, and then we can ask ourselves if we are ready to accept the challenge.
I growl: “Tomorrow, we secure a home for our tribe. Once we’ve brought our tribe away from the cursed jungle and towards the safety of the salt sea – once we are settled – we can prove ourselves to the Orb-God.” My voice is cold with finality, but it almost sounds like I’m trying to convince myself as much as Darok or Hadone.
