The creature spun toward her. Dark purple blood spattered the rich green leaves of the dense undergrowth, but the beast showed no sign of pain. It bunched its muscles, preparing to spring again. Temi thought about sidestepping away from the tree, so she could leap away in any direction, but it could be a useful shield too. Or… she glanced up, spotting a branch eight or nine feet high. Maybe she could—
The creature attacked again before she had time to finalize her battle plan. This time, it roared and charged her without jumping, barreling straight at her like a train. She almost let its speed and ferocity set her back on her heels, but she would be defending from a position of desperation if she allowed that. Instead, she kept her weight even until it was almost upon her, then she jumped into the air, catching the branch with her free hand and curling her legs up at the same time as she slammed down with the sword, aiming for its skull this time.
The creature’s shoulder bumped her foot as it passed, jostling her aim. Her weapon slashed through its ear and sheared fur and flesh off its head, but it wasn’t the killing blow she had hoped for.
Disgusted, Temi decided she needed to attack from a solid spot on the ground instead of flailing at it while airborne. Then she could push off the earth and throw her hips, her entire body, behind her swings. The snarling beast spun about, not yet slowed by its injuries. It didn’t even seem to notice them.
She dropped from the branch to face it. Instead of charging at her again, it circled her and the tree, keeping its body low as it sought the right moment.
“Go ahead,” Temi whispered. “I’m staying put this time.”
The animal lunged toward her, and she shifted her weight, ready to throw everything into a swing at it, but the lunge was only a feint. Her furry opponent was testing her. She took a couple of steps toward it, waving the sword, thinking she might get a chance to charge. Or at least hoping the weapon’s silvery glow might unsettle the animal. Faster than she ever could be, the creature didn’t let her get close. Not on her terms anyway.
Temi stepped on a branch and the wood snapped. A small animal sprang out of a nearby bush, startling her. For an instant, her attention was drawn away from the creature. It chose that moment to charge again, leaping toward her head—toward her neck.
Temi wanted to spring away from those raking claws, but she made herself sink low and stand her ground. She ducked under the outstretched paws, then came up from beneath them, pushing off the ground and throwing her blade at the creature’s neck. The sword sliced through flesh, muscle, and bone, like a knife cutting warm butter, but she was buried beneath hundreds of pounds of animal before she could tell if she’d struck a killing blow.
No claws or fangs cut into her, but fear boiled into her throat as she was borne to the ground. The creature thrashed, and she didn’t know if it was dying or attacking her. She squirmed, trying to scramble out, to escape, but the damned thing had to weigh a half ton. Her knee screamed as she twisted it, and it wasn’t even the one that usually bothered her. Gasping, she finally clawed her way to freedom. She crawled, trying to put distance between herself and the animal and finally found her feet. Somehow, she had maintained a grip on the sword. Her hands were covered in blood, and she gulped, but the animal wasn’t moving. It was a good thing. If it had been alive, it could have smothered her to death by simply not letting her escape. Forget the claws and teeth.
“Next time, get in, make the killing blow, and then get out before it falls on you,” came Jakatra’s comment from a few feet away. He was leaning against the tree on the other side of the dead animal.
Temi bit back a comment that would have been along the lines of, screw you. She brushed dirt off her clothes, to give herself a moment to calm down—though the action was pointless when those clothes were already stained with blood—then managed a civil, “Yes, I figured out that my strategy was flawed as I was being smashed into the ground.”
Jakatra gazed blandly at her. “What will you do differently next time?”
No congratulations on killing it, however messily. No good job for not losing her sword under a half-ton dead monster. No promise that she had passed her first test. Temi sighed.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I thought I had to get in close to really land a good whack, but that probably wasn’t the smartest thing, after all. If I hadn’t killed it, I would have been dead.”
“Yes.”
Such charming bluntness.
“I wasn’t doing much damage by jumping in and out, trying to hurt it without getting inside its range,” Temi said. “I was afraid if I kept messing around like that, I’d get unlucky and it would catch me. And the wounds I’d inflicted weren’t doing much to slow it down. Losing its ear didn’t faze it at all.”
“Eventually, you would have worn it down with that strategy.”
“So that’s what I should have done?” Temi imagined tripping over a root during a prolonged battle.
“With practice, you will find a style that suits you for hunting big game. That is why we are here.”
Standing behind a ridge and shooting big game with a grenade launcher sounded like a style that would suit her. The elves claimed that even powerful Earth-based weapons wouldn’t work on the monsters, but she wasn’t sure she believed that. Simon didn’t. The last time she had seen him, he had been shopping online for materials to make explosives, proclaiming that all of the components were perfectly legal to own.
“The attrition style will likely be a necessity with the jibtab. Vital targets may not be obvious, and what appears to be a neck might not carry blood.”
Yes, the creature they had faced before hadn’t even seemed to have blood. Simon and Delia had speculated that it was more robot than being, though even that hadn’t been a very accurate classification. “Burying it under a million tons of rock and water worked.”
“In that instance, yes, but you will not always be able to choose the place where you face a jibtab. And it, too, may be different each time, made from different raw materials, depending on the whims of its creator.”
The way he spoke authoritatively about creators and materials made Temi wonder if he and Eleriss had been telling the truth, that they didn’t know who was making the monsters.
“With that sword, you’ll cut through muscle and bone much more easily than you would with mine.” Jakatra waved the blade he had brought with him, the same one he had been training with all week. “The attrition style should prove effective.”
An eerie sound drifted through the forest, something between a groan and a howl. It made the hair on Temi’s arms stand up.
“Next test?” she asked.
How many battles would Jakatra expect from her that night? With drying sweat and blood caking her, all she wanted was a shower and a bed. She already felt as if she had played an entire match, and full darkness had yet to fall, something that would add a degree of difficulty to her encounters, glowing sword or not.
“The saru,” Jakatra said, his pointed ears tilted toward the noise. “Odd.”
“How so?” Other than the fact that those howls made her want to crawl into a bank vault and lock herself in.
“They compete for territory with the uruv-neshi.” He pointed at the dead animal. “They’ll fight if they encounter one another, so it’s unusual to find them within ten miles of each other.”
Another howl stirred Temi’s arm hairs. “Maybe this one knows this territory is newly available.”
“Perhaps.” Jakatra didn’t sound convinced. She tried not to find that disturbing. “Regardless, a saru would be a good test. They are much faster than the uruv-neshi.”
Temi still didn’t know how she had fared on the last test. Was killing the beast and surviving enough for a satisfactory rating? Or would she lose points for being smashed under a corpse?
A second howl joined the first, this one an even higher and creepier pitch. Temi wanted to remain calm. She had fought one creature and won, so she could handle this new challenge—she knew sh
e could—but she could feel her heart racing in her chest, hammering against her ribs. Aside from the howls, the forest was so still that she could hear her own breathing, short, quick inhalations. Damn, she wasn’t calm at all.
“Two?” Jakatra frowned. “Even odder. They are not pack animals.”
“Are they drawn to the smell of blood? Maybe we should move away from the corpse.”
“They prefer that their food still be alive when they dine.” Jakatra did walk away from the first dead animal, though, heading toward the open area where they had waited for their first attacker. “Come. I will assist you in this next battle.”
Well, that was something anyway.
Temi jogged after him, sticking close. The howls were continuing. And they were growing closer. “Do you want to use this sword?” she asked, having the sense that his wasn’t magical or specially powered or whatever it was that made hers glow.
He gazed back at her silvery blade. “No, it is yours to master.”
More howls joined the first, and his head spun toward the noise. “More?” he whispered, a note of concern in his voice for the first time.
The cries were blending together now to Temi’s ears, and she couldn’t tell if there were two creatures or ten. “How many?”
Jakatra stopped walking. “There are at least four.”
“Four animals as big and strong as what I just fought?”
“Not quite as big, but stronger and faster. And they never travel in packs. Or even pairs. The female kills the male after they mate if he doesn’t leave her side soon enough.”
“They sound cozy.”
Jakatra didn’t answer; he was looking in all directions, analyzing the forest, his eyes glowing faintly in the deepening gloom. Searching for somewhere to hide? To run to?
“Jakatra?” she whispered during a lull in the howls. The woods were utterly silent around them. “Did you bring any of your superior protections that drive them away? For backup?”
His expression changed little, but she got a sense of bleakness from them. “If I had, they wouldn’t have come.”
“Do you have a way to communicate with Eleriss?”
“No.”
The howls grew shorter, more excited, reminding Temi of coyotes on the heels of their prey. Except these creatures sounded much bigger than coyotes.
“They’re here.” Jakatra pointed into the trees.
It was too dark now for Temi to pick out anything—the silvery illumination from her sword didn’t reach that far—but she trusted he could see with his glowing eyes.
“Come, up that big tree. Can you climb it? There are too many for us to fight.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Temi raced after him to a tree with a six-foot-diameter trunk. It looked sturdy enough to withstand even the most determined predator. So long as none of them came armed with chainsaws.
The cracked plates of bark reminded Temi of alligator junipers back home, but the trunk rose straight up without any branches for the first twenty feet. Not fazed, Jakatra charged up the tree as if he were Usain Bolt sprinting down a track. Temi gawked. There was no way she could duplicate that feat; he hadn’t even put his sword away for the climb.
More animals were gathering in the shadows, spreading out to surround them. Jakatra must be mistaken. They were definitely hunting with pack instincts. And they were getting closer.
She stuck her sword into the scabbard hanging across her back and slid her hands over the rough bark. When the blade disappeared into its home, its glow quenched, the darkness left behind filled her with as much fear as those howls did. She reached up, gripping the trunk and jumped, trying to dig her boots into the bark. They skidded down several inches. Panic rose in her breast, along with the realization that she might not be able to do this, that she hadn’t climbed enough trees as a child.
A high-pitched yowl erupted from the brush not twenty feet away. Sheer adrenaline changed Temi’s mind—she could do this—and propelled her upward. Her shoes skidded again. She cursed, hugged the tree for all she was worth, and kicked them off. She made much better progress in socks. But was it enough? Heavy paws trod on the undergrowth around the trunk. Snarls and slavering sounds filled her ears.
“Look out,” Jakatra yelled from above.
Temi dug in with her feet, left the fingers of one hand wedged between two scales in the bark, and slid the sword out with the other hand. Light splashed the side of the tree and illuminated part of the ground, as well as the black feline-like creature leaping into the air, a paw slashing for her leg.
Temi swatted at it weakly, afraid she would fall from her precarious perch. Luck guided her hand, and she connected with a pointed nose. The creature yowled, and she glimpsed a rack of sharp fangs before it dropped back to the ground. Countless others were swirling around down there.
“Keep climbing, go,” came Jakatra’s muffled voice from the other side of the trunk.
His unexpected proximity startled her, and that alone was almost enough to upset her balance. He caught her wrist, as if to secure her to the tree. The hilt of his sword was clenched between his teeth. Another feline leaped, but Jakatra let go of Temi and intercepted it with his blade.
She was tempted to stay and help, but he clearly meant to buy her time to climb. And what good would she be if she fell into that snarling mass of animals, anyway? She would only get herself killed. With her eyes on that first branch, she returned to climbing. Instead of putting away the sword and plunging them into darkness again, she tried to use it as an aid. She drove the serrated part into the bark like an anchor, using it to help pull her body up foot by foot. Grunting and straining—and lacking all of Jakatra’s agility—she muscled herself up the tree through will and determination. She clasped onto the branch with a great sigh of relief and pulled herself astraddle it, putting her back to the trunk.
Jakatra was right behind her.
“We’ll be safe up here?” she asked, squinting into the gloom below. There was a bump halfway up the tree. That couldn’t be one of the creatures, could it?
“Safe? No. They can climb.”
Temi’s heart sank. “Then why…?” Why had they bothered scrambling up to this perch?
“Only one or two can come at us at a time, and we’ll have the advantage, the high ground.”
Temi grimaced, not sure how advantaged she felt, sitting on a branch. Even as she watched, Jakatra slashed and stabbed at a feline that must have weighed four hundred pounds. It made a tiger look small. The animal hissed and slashed right back at him. Those eerie yips came from the ground, and more creatures started up the tree.
“Turn off the light of your sword so I can see something,” Jakatra said, a strange note to his voice. “The glow is disturbing my night vision.”
As much as that notion went against her every instinct—surely light could only help her fight these beasts—she commanded the sword to dim, as she had been taught. After its illumination, the night was especially dark, and Temi blinked, willing her eyes to adjust. There were stars up there above the trees, but she hadn’t spotted a moon on this world yet.
Clangs and thuds came from below her branch. Temi shifted her weight, trying to find a position where she might help him attack. Standing or crouching on the branch might be best, but then what would she hold onto?
“Look down,” Jakatra said.
“I can’t see in the dark,” she said, though he had to know that by now. She squinted toward the ground, though she didn’t expect to pick anything out of the gloom. To her surprise, she spotted a few glowing blue dots moving around the base of the tree. Another was halfway up the trunk. “What the—”
“Command devices,” Jakatra said, his voice grim.
“Like the ones the animals that first night were wearing? The animals you said were domesticated?”
“Yes.”
“You were controlling those other ones, right? Who’s controlling these?”
“I don’t know.”
&nb
sp; “Oh.”
Chapter 8
Temi cut one of the shaggy felines between the eyes, then slashed at the paw gripping the branch she was standing on. The beast let go, tumbling into the darkness below. A startled cry came from it or one of the buddies it landed on. She slumped against the trunk, wiping sweat from her eyes and wishing, for the fiftieth time, she had her water bottle with her.
“I had intended to pit you against a number of different types of animals tonight,” Jakatra said from a branch on the other side of the trunk. They had climbed up another ten feet to find separate perches for each of them—and in hopes of deterring the giant cats. That had been two hours ago. They hadn’t spoken much; there hadn’t been many lulls. “Nothing else will approach while the saru are here in such alarming numbers.”
Temi wouldn’t want anything else to approach. She was so tired that she no longer cared about being trained, about her knee, about her career, about anything. She wanted to go home. And if that couldn’t happen, a glass of cold lemonade would be almost as good.
The cats were milling suspiciously at the base of the tree. She heard them more than she saw them—the silver illumination of her sword didn’t reach the ground—but those angry hisses and eerie yowls marked their presence.
“There is little more to be gained from this. You are tired and the creatures are relentless.” Jakatra, his angular face silhouetted by the glow of her sword, gazed toward the starry sky above, then at the nearby trees.
“You’re not tired?” Temi asked. He never seemed to be, but even he had to be worn down by the constant fighting. He was doing as much as she and with a sword that didn’t have nearly as much bite.
“I am no longer satisfied by this situation.”
That was probably the closest he would come to admitting weariness. “How many hours until Eleriss comes to get us?” Temi asked.
Destiny Unchosen Page 5
