The Vori's Secret

by S. J. Sanders

  Chapter 5

  As the sun sank in the distance, Jenn squeezed herself through a crevice into what appeared to be a small enclosure of rocks. It didn’t provide her much room to do more than curl up on her side, but after checking it for any unpleasant residents, she felt safer than she would sleeping on exposed rock. Although there was a chance that anything could crawl in with her during the night, she couldn’t pass up shelter.

  Despite her exhaustion, she had trouble falling asleep. Unfamiliar sounds of alien wildlife made her huddle up in misery. None too little of that misery was due to tenderness in her stomach.

  In exploring safe food to eat, she’d found a considerable amount of fruit that grew wild in the jungle. Large fruits, succulent berries. Uncertain of what was safe to eat, she’d paced herself, eating only small amounts and checking for any sign of illness before eating more of the same. She’d been doing fine until she ate a particularly juicy berry that reminded her of blackberries from Earth, even possessing a similar sweetness, differing only by an odd bite in aftertaste. Like a fool, she’d ignored her previous precautions and greedily ate huge handfuls.

  She hadn’t noticed anything at first, not until the stomach cramps set in. She’d been forced to stop for hours to deal with her sickness, staying hydrated only by the good fortune of finding a small stream that she’d managed to crawl to during the worst episode.

  Jenn grimaced. She hadn’t gotten far after that. But she couldn’t complain too much. Eating that much fruit, if it had been poisonous, would have killed her. An upset stomach was getting off easy.

  Her breath caught in her throat as long, narrow claws descended on the other side of the crevice. What the fuck was that? Her shock turned to horror as the body of the creature was slowly revealed to her as it moved away.

  It was a fucking spider! Like something straight out of Eight Legged Freaks.

  She whimpered low in her throat, but tightened her lips, terrified that even the slightest sound might alert it to her presence. She couldn’t so much as breathe until it ambled away into the distance and disappeared from sight.

  Tears filled her eyes. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t survive any better on Vora than she would have been able to on Agraadax. The guard had saved the wrong woman. She was probably going to die a terrible death. If she didn’t end up poisoning herself, something was probably going to eat her. She didn’t have what it took to survive.

  Laughter echoed in her mind, the voice not unlike that of her “mate.” Every hateful word that had flayed her from his tongue returned to her, reminding her of how useless she was. How weak. Insignificant.

  Curling into a ball, tears streaming down her face, she shook her head, her hands instinctively cupped over her ears as if that would do any good to block out that mocking laughter. She cried until exhaustion finally overwhelmed her and she dropped into a troubled sleep, haunted by her memories.

  EYUUL CURSED, HIS CLAWS scraping along the sides of the pit. He was racing against time. He needed to get out of the pit before the sun set or resign himself to waiting out the night there. The shoyla would soon begin their hunt. He anchored his tail along the crevices of the wall, shifting his body to give him a few more inches of reach. Almost... there...

  With a triumphant shout, his fingertips gripped the ledge of the fissure. Eyuul bellowed from the strain as he pulled his torso over the edge. Lying face down in the dirt, he groaned painfully. He still needed to slide the rest of his tail out, but he just needed a moment to recover. A wiploo landed nearby, the bright plumage of its four wings ruffling around it as it tilted its head to inspect him. It chirped and hopped forward before it departed with a quick beat of its wings.

  Eyuul groaned, knowing that he’d better move before something decided he looked like an appetizing meal. Pushing up onto his elbows, he pulled himself forward as the length of his tail slid along the crevice before finally, at the end, he released his grip on the stones, allowing the rest of his tail to slide out.

  Allowing himself only minutes to catch his breath, Eyuul pushed up to the side of a tree and gripped one of its lower branches in his hand. His muscles screamed with exhaustion, but he pulled himself up higher into safety among the tallest reaches of the trees.

  Lying back, his tail coiled along the length of the branch, Eyuul stared up at the glimpses of the heavens peeking out from between the dense cluster of leaves. He took a deep breath, allowing himself to relax. The female certainly had attempted to twist his tail. A grin stole over his face, before a chuckle broke loose and then another.

  One of Clan es’Etale’s best hunters had been waylaid by the machinations of a tiny human. Admiration swelled in his hearts.

  The jungle darkened with the descent of the sun, and Eyuul felt a pang of concern. What was she doing right now? Was she safe? Never again would she pass a night in the jungle where he would not be able to care for her. For now, he would keep his distance so that she wouldn’t feel threatened, but she wouldn’t go a night again without his protection. He swore it to himself before he allowed sleep to claim him.

  JENN WOKE UP SEVERAL hours later, her face stiff from tears that had dried in her sleep and from noticeable signs of sunburn. Squinting against a persistent beam of sunlight, she stretched. Her muscles complained from sleeping in cramped confines, but that seemed to be the worst of it. Her stomach grumbled angrily for food.

  Cautiously, she slid back out into the open, checking for any signs of the giant spider. The jungle seemed to be silent, aside from the raucous sounds of wildlife from the day before. Not that she’d know what one of those arachnids sounded like, but at the very least she didn’t hear anything big moving through the nearby trees, and that gave her some hope.

  Inspecting a large flat leaf, pooled with dew that had accumulated overnight, Jenn tipped it, swallowing the mouthfuls of water gratefully. Even the simple act of swallowing made her face ache. There was little she could do for the sunburn, but despite the canopy of trees, she decided it would be wise to devise some kind of covering so it wouldn’t get worse. The leaf seemed broad enough, and the fiber thick enough, that it could make a passable head covering. Gripping the leaf, she tugged.

  Unfortunately, said leaf didn’t seem inclined to pull easily from the stem. She stumbled back, losing her grip as tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t even pluck a single leaf. It was just another thing in the long list of her personal failures.

  Jenn bit back tears as her dad’s voice drifted through her mind, bringing with it a warm memory of her childhood. When she was thirteen, and the tent she tried to put together by herself had collapsed, she burst into tears at her failure. Her father had sat beside her, his face scrunching up as he examined the half-folded tent.

  “I suck!” she’d cried. “I’ll never get this stupid tent up right. I’m a failure.”

  He had not laughed. He just inspected that sad old tent, one large hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “You know, Jenn-bug, some might say that this attempt was a failure, but I like to think of it as learning another way not to put it up. No sense crying over something that just is. You just got to stick with it and figure out another way to approach. The fact you haven’t yet struck on the right way to do it yet doesn’t say anything about you. It just means you’re on an adventure, learning something new. Now, dry your tears and let’s try again.”

  Jenn wiped her forearm over her eyes with a sniffle.

  “You’re right, Daddy.”

  Jenn circled the plant. The stalk was very thick. Even the place where the leaf was attached reminded her a bit of the stalk of a palm frond, despite the structure of the leaf itself being different. Using both hands, Jenn gripped the leaf again. This time when she pulled, she also yanked it down and twisted it to the side. Directing a sea of curses at the leaf, Jenn pulled until, with an audible rip, it tore away. Falling back onto her ass, she crowed in triumph, holding the leaf in the air until she dropped her arm, feeling a little foolish. Still, she couldn’t help the goofy
smile plastered on her face as she examined her prize.

  Hunting along the rocks, she found a stone with an edge and returned to her leaf. Kneeling beside it, she hacked repeatedly along the major vein running down the center of the leaf until it finally split in two. Stripping the vein free of the other half, she set the two portions side by side. Taking one portion, Jenn used the point of the rock to punch a hole through both ends. She then took her vine that she’d been carrying around and stretched it out in front of her. Laboriously, she cut two lengths from the coil.

  Taking up the punctured leaf, she threaded the vine through and knotted it around small, lightweight rocks scattered over the ground. They almost reminded her of pumice, which she often found as a child in the area she grew up. Idly, she wondered if it was similar. It would make perfect clasps to keep the thin vine from slipping through the small punctures she’d torn into the leaf.

  Draping the modified leaf over her head, she knotted the vine beneath her chin. It wasn’t a great fit and liked to slide back and forth on her head as she moved, but it worked. Taking the remaining leaf section, she folded it into a rough pouch. This too she punctured at the edges. It proved to take a bit more work digging through the folded leaf, but eventually she tore two rough holes through which she threaded the other cut length of vine, likewise tying off the ends. Looping the pouch over her shoulder, she set her tool at the bottom and headed off to where she’d seen a bush loaded with red berries the day before that were both filling and delicious.

  This time while she walked, instead of grazing, she would be gathering food and taking it along with her as she went.

  EYUUL WATCHED THE HUMAN scamper to the berry bushes, a thoughtful smile on his face. He’d been worried enough when he found the evidence of her illness, but when he finally caught up to her, he felt dismayed by the sight below. It had taken him most of the morning to catch up to her, and he hadn’t known what to expect. He was initially relieved when he saw her small form, but then froze when the sounds of sorrow drifted up to his high perch.

  He was pleased to see her physically well, but seeing her nearly in tears in front of the eyaal bush had almost been too much for him to bear. Although he’d promised himself that he would keep watch from afar, protecting her until his presence was required, he’d been moved by her distress and tempted to drop from the trees to offer her assistance.

  But before he could do that, a look of resolve had settled over her face. He watched her get to her feet, examine the plant, and then attack it. Her shout of victory had made him smile. But more curious was the way she used her prize. Hanging in the trees not far above her, he’d watched with interest. The product wasn’t attractive, but he had to admit that the human was resourceful. She not only found a way to protect her delicate human skin from the harsh sun, but also made sure to have a way to carry food with her.

  He watched her in silence as she gathered food and continued on her way. Only when he was certain that she was far enough not to notice did he begin, once again, to glide through the trees overhead. He was disturbed by how often she seemed to crumble, her strength flagging due to some internal foe. The more he watched, the more certain he became that she suffered greatly at the hand of another who had hurt her more than he’d ever know. Yet, despite it all, she always picked herself back up and continued on.

  Vori admired fortitude, often lauded through the acts of courage, endurance, and personal power, but Eyuul knew without a doubt, as he observed from above, what he was seeing was real strength.

  JENN CAME TO THE CONCLUSION, by the second day, that there was little she hated more than walking in a dress. The dress itself was a laughable excuse of fabric but still managed to get caught on something every few feet. She was then forced to stop and, amid frustrated tears and with no little cursing, get herself unhooked.

  Although she could rip the dress to a shorter length, it was not out of love for it that she didn’t do so. If she could risk completely exposing her body, she would’ve happily done away with it immediately. It had been a gift from her “mate” and wearing it was little different than wearing her subjugation to the will of the Agraak. The weight of the sheer fabric, the brush of it as it swayed around her legs, all took her back to quarters in Agraak where she’d been confined.

  Ripping the dress, however, meant exposing more of her legs. Brushing off various insects that clung to her dress had been bad enough. The idea of them clinging to her bare legs as she walked through the jungle made her skin shudder. The thought of the brush of plants and branches against her skin, when certain foliage felt disturbingly like fingers brushing her skin, reinforced her stance.

  It was bad enough that she was flinching whenever leaves lashed against her face or arms. Every time, her instincts swore it was a hand grabbing her once again. Her heart would nearly burst in fear and she’d panic until she realized it had been nothing. She couldn’t subject herself to more of that. Not whenever the grip of the bramble that tugged on her hair and body felt like his cruel hands pulling her to him.

  Jenn knew she was in bad shape. Her nerves were frayed, and her anxiety was through the roof. It was bad enough that her nightmares had kept her awake, but in the dark it was easy to imagine that an errant breeze was her “mate” moving close to her, reminding her of her obligations. During the day, she was able to chase the voices away, and he would be safely far away from her, but never at night. At one point she woke from a particularly terrible dream and swore she felt someone watching her above.

  She’d bolted and ran in a blind panic, certain that it was someone sent by her mate or her mate himself in her half-dreaming state, until she wedged herself between two rocks. There, she’d slept the rest of the night fitfully until morning dawned and she retraced her steps through the bushes and retrieved her things.

  Starting out the day exhausted, and then encountering thick patches of plants that pulled at her clothing and slowed her progress was torturous, broke her down little by little. When she got mired in a patch of bramble, her endurance reached its peak.

  Jenn felt a tug on her braids and tripped when her dress followed suit. She shrieked and fought against her unseen assailant. Quicker than before, the fog of panic cleared from her mind, and Jenn’s fear transformed from panic to fury. Angrily she broke herself free of the branches and she screamed her fury at them, imagining that they were his hands that she broke over and over again with every snap of a branch.

  “I hate you. You will never have me again. Never! You won’t break me. I will be the one to break you.”

  Glaring down at the battered plants around her, Jenn panted, her eyes roving over the destruction until her eyes landed on a thick branch lying half-hidden in the ruin of vegetation. Curious, she edged toward it, flipping it out of the brush with her foot. It had clearly fallen some time ago and dried where it had been protected beneath the magenta foliage.

  With the sharp edge of the rock she’d used as a cutting tool the night before, she leaned over and hacked at one of her sticks until it gradually began to form a point. She swore to herself, certain she would have to sharpen the stone again by the time she was done.

  None of the flakes that broke off her cutting tool had been big enough to be useful for making a spear point, only a small assortment of shivs collected from the largest fragments. These she kept in her bag with her adz. Jenn decided to collect more of the flint-like rocks. Perhaps with some trial and error she could eventually make a spear point. It would be a far more difficult task than merely sharpening the edge of her own adz.

  Jenn bit her lip. She didn’t know how successful she would be. There was a chance that even the spear tip she was trying to fashion now could split and break. What did she know about making weapons? Though she spent much of her childhood watching her father build traps as they hunted for their dinner, she’d been young still when her father had become too sick for their excursions. She cursed, glaring down at her progress, knowing she couldn’t keep allowing him to control her.


  She would make the damn spear, and she would keep working at making her tools. She wouldn’t stop trying. She wouldn’t just lie down and give up like he would have expected her to do.

  Sweat dripped from her forehead by the time the stick finally formed into a rough wooden point. She had no fire with which to harden it, but a wobbly smile crept over her face. She felt better, stronger, and more secure with the weapon regardless. Throwing her shoulders back, she tilted her head back and glared into the heavens, to call out her vow to any divinity listening and Agraadax itself far beyond Vora.

  “I swear—I will see Agraadax fall. I hope then you will reap all that you deserve.”

  EYUUL BIT BACK A SNARL. He did not know who she addressed, but he knew of Agraadax and his heart ached for her if she’d survived such terror. Without hesitation, he added his oath to hers. Whoever had hurt her so much to cause her such pain and fear deserved the worst retribution. His heart joined hers as she crushed the plants around her as if she were to crush her foe, and yet when she set to making a crude weapon with a rare find of dry wood in the wilderness, his admiration grew.

  He would add his strength to her own. His might would serve for her justice, in whatever form that it took. As she stood panting over the broken branches, her face flushed with anger, she was glorious.

  Chapter 6

  After several uncomfortable nights sleeping on stones, not wanting to take any chances sleeping among the leaves and root systems in fear of attracting more leeches or other unpleasant bedmates, and long days hiking over the rough uphill terrain of the jungle, Jenn almost regretted ditching her questionable rescuer. She’d been fortunate to locate small caves some nights, but the others she was a nervous wreck. By some miracle, she hadn’t seen another giant spider yet, though she wasn’t sure how much of that was due to the dumb luck.