“So,” she told herself, softly. “Find way.”
She reached out and cut into that joint, causing another booming howl to echo overhead. The Cheelin’s frenetic thrashing increased, but Reow continued to hold on and dig with her claws. Eventually, a sac of some kind parted, and the hot, delicious scent of the creature’s blood began to flow.
She kept digging. Her other three limbs were shaking with the effort required to hang on to the wild ride. But she knew that if she dropped, she was dead. And so she hung on, and continued.
Eventually, she found a thin cord of something. She pulled on it until it snapped. More blood sprayed out of the fissure she’d made, and the Cheelin’s voice faltered, then renewed its aural assault. The leg she was holding, however, went still and limp. Dead weight.
She’d managed to sever the main nerve trunk. Excellent.
In the time it took her to come to that realization, the animal began to keel over toward that side. She retracted her claws and leapt free just in time to avoid being crushed between the limb and the torso. But when she jumped, she jumped toward the belly, which smacked her to the soil and came down hard above her. Only the width of the dead leg kept her from being smashed into oblivion.
But here, finally, she could reach the vulnerable spot.
The Cheelin struggled to get his forelegs beneath him and push up, to keep fighting. But it was too late. With a sigh of relief, Reow extended her claws again and ripped open the vulnerability. Blood rained down on her. The big animal gave one last shudder and went still.
She lay underneath the carcass, her chest heaving, sucking in blood-tainted breaths. Her pulse gradually slowed to normal. She reached up and began cutting away at that soft spot, widening her gash, making enough room so that she could squeeze out between the carcass and the jungle floor. More blood poured down, making it hard to breathe. Bright nothingness started to crowd in at the edges of her vision. Her claws trembled, and a frantic urgency surged through her.
She kept clawing, cutting, digging her way out.
A breath of air, cool on the wetness of her fur. She opened her mouth and sucked it in, and then renewed her assault. Slowly, so slowly, she extricated herself from beneath the carcass of the animal that had nearly taken her with him.
When she pulled her body out, she collapsed on the soft loam next to the dead Cheelin. She heard Teacher’s chittering voice in the trees above.
“Not die?”
“No,” Reow said, voice choked and breathless. “Not die.”
“Good kill.”
“Something like that,” Reow said. Her blood-sticky eyelids drooped closed in exhaustion.
Something clattered to the ground next to her head. She leapt up, reflexes humming, senses instantly on guard. Teacher let out her chittering sound, but said nothing.
It was long and thin, and glinted faintly in the light that filtered through the canopy above. It looked like a stick that tapered to a point on one end, and had a crossways piece about a third of the way down its length. Only it wasn’t wood.
Reow sniffed at it, then bent to touch it with an outstretched claw.
“What is it?” she asked Teacher.
“Hunterrr tool,” Teacher said.
“A tool? How do I use it?”
“Can not teach. Am not hunterrr. Basrrreen do not use. Rrreow learn. Find way.”
“But…” Reow said, her eyes going wide. “I…”
“Yes. Rrreow go. Good young. Not die. Need hunterrr trricks now. Go. Find way.”
Teacher slithered down from her perch, and for the first time, Reow noticed how slow the Basreen moved. Her once supple body seemed stiff, and that bad feeling began to fill Reow once again.
“Teacher?” Reow asked. “You hurt?”
“Hurrt. Yes. Old. Tirred.” The Basreen coiled herself up on the ground, then slithered over to climb up Reow’s body. Enough seasons had passed that Reow had grown long and sleek, her body easily twice the length of Teacher’s. As she had done so long ago, Teacher coiled herself around Reow’s frame, but this time she didn’t squeeze to hurt. This time, it was more of an embrace.
A pain like fear, yet different stabbed through Reow. She felt her throat closing down, making it hard to speak. Still, she fought to get the words out, because this was important.
“You are sending me away so you can die,” she said, the pain flowing through her words like an accusation.
“No. Sending you to learrn. All die sometime.”
“Teacher…”
“No. Is good. Strrong Rrreow. Smarrt Rreow. Now need Hunterr teaching. Go. Rrememberr Teacherrr.” Teacher gave her one squeeze, and then pulled her body up onto Reow’s shoulder. Reow watched, feeling as if she was being torn apart from the inside as the only being that had ever cared for her leapt into the trees, wings extended, and left her for the last time.
* * *
Reow waited, but Teacher didn’t return.
Eventually, she let out a sigh and tried to ease the ache in her throat. Teacher would be disappointed in her if she stayed there and let the sadness win. So she bent and picked up Teacher’s final gift before turning and walking away.
She knew where to go, of course. Teacher had shown her many seasons ago the paths that led to where the other Hunters lived. Their scents hung heavy in the trees here, making it an easy place to avoid…or in this case, find.
With her tool clutched awkwardly in a paw unused to it, Reow headed off toward the scents of her own kind. The darkness had gathered, and most of the night was gone by the time she reached the paths in the trees redolent of other hunters. Mindful of her lessons, she found a vantage spot in the trees and began to watch.
There, through the leaves of the jungle, she got her first glimpse of a being like herself.
He walked on four feet, his long body weaving sinuously down the lines of the path. His fur was an unrelieved black that shone in the light of the setting moons. He wore some kind of strange contraption. It looked like vines that crossed his back and torso, interspersed with flatter, oblong shapes here and there that looked like they might have something inside. Reow craned her neck to see if she could figure out how the vines fastened onto his body, and carelessly rattled the leaves around her.
The Hunter below pulled on that other sense, the one for which Reow had no name, and disappeared from sight. Completely. More than just black fur lost in shadow. He was gone.
Except that he wasn’t. She could still feel him through that other sense. He took another step down the path, and Reow felt the echoes of his movement vibrating along the inside of her skin. Purely as an experiment, she pushed that sensation outward, down through the trees toward the other Hunter.
He reappeared. Somehow, she knew he was male.
“I greet you, hunter,” he called out. His tone held a strange note. Annoyance, her instinct whispered. “I can see you skulking in the trees. Your stealth leaves something to be desired. You might as well come out and talk like a civilized being.”
“I do not know those words,” Reow said as she hopped down. “Why are you annoyed with me?”
“My, you are blunt,” the hunter said. “Perhaps because I was not expecting to be stalked on my walk this morning. You are very young to be out on your own, kita. Where is your Dama?”
“I have no Dama,” Reow said, drawing herself up to her back feet and full height. “I have lived for three years of seasons on my own.”
The other hunter’s expression changed. Something softer entered his eyes.
“You lost your Dama at a young age, then? I am very sorry for your loss. Where was your clan? Why did they not care for you?”
“I never had a Dama.” For by this time, her memories of softness and milk were naught but half-remembered dreams. “I have no clan. All I have is Teacher, and it was time for her to die. She sent me here, to learn how to use Hunter tools.”
She lifted her knife as she spoke, and the Hunter’s eyes went wide. He stood up and towered over her,
but she refused to back down.
“May I see that?” he asked, reaching out a paw. His voice was calm and respectful, and Reow didn’t think he’d try to make off with it, so she slowly laid her tool in his outstretched fingerpads.
He lifted it up, rubbed at the metal, sniffed it, and scratched at it with a claw.
“I cannot say without taking it to a lab, but I believe… this thing seems positively ancient, Hunter. Where did you get it?”
“Teacher gave it to me,” she said. “She said it was a Hunter tool, and I needed to find a Hunter to teach me how to use it.”
“Why did your teacher not show you?”
“She wasn’t a Hunter. She was a Basreen.”
He lifted his head from his examination of the tool and blinked slowly as his ears swiveled fully toward her.
“Your Teacher was a Basreen?” he said, his voice slow, as if he were trying to understand.
“Yes.”
“And she was your Teacher since when?”
“Always. Since I opened my eyes.”
“And that was…?”
“Three years ago.”
“You’re a three-year-old kita who was raised by a Basreen, and now you want to learn how to use a knife?”
“Is that what this is called? Yes. I must learn to use the knife. And other Hunter tools.”
“Oh Kita…” the Hunter closed his eyes briefly.
“Why do you call me Kita? My name is Reow. Teacher named me. Deadly Night Wind.”
“Kita means young female hunter. You will not even be fully grown for another year! How did you eat?” he asked, opening his eyes.
“I killed. Teacher taught me to hunt. But from the trees. Like a Basreen. I need to learn to hunt like a Hunter,” she said, feeling impatience creeping in to her tone. Why were they still standing here on the path half in and half out of the jungle? Was he going to help her or not?
“I don’t know what to say,” he said, as if talking to himself. “I was just out looking for medicinal plants!”
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” he trailed off, sounding confused and frustrated and more than a little lost. “I am a healer. A Hunter-of-Hurts. And sometimes I use plants to help me fix the hurts I find. Have you… do you have any hurts?”
“I do not need plants. I need someone to teach me,” Reow said. Frustration bubbled up within her. “I must learn to be a Hunter.”
“Kita,” he said, his voice smooth, soothing. “You are mighty and brave. I will help you, if you let me. But three years on your own, with only a Basreen. You should have died! Please let me check you for hurts, and heal what I may find?”
“If I do this, you will help me find someone to teach me?”
“I will,” he said solemnly, though he blinked slowly again. “This will be our contract.”
“Contract?”
“Hunters agree to do things for a price. I will help you, but your price is that you must let me heal your hurts, little fierce Reow. Do you agree to the terms?”
She paused, because something in his voice told her this was important. But really, she could see no other option at present, and with the memory of Teacher’s lessons in her ears, Reow blinked her assent.
“I agree.”
“Very well,” he said. “Let us go back to my den. I will examine you, and we will see how you have survived.”
* * *
It turned out that the Healer had a name as well. His name was Sarru. He told her that he was a member of the Twisting Fire clan, but that he had a den and a lab of his own. And that’s where he took her.
Sarru also had a lifemate, a female named Iora who was a “molly” to Twisting Fire’s most recent litter of kits. But the kits had reached their maturity, Sarru said, and so Iora would be pleased to have another young one to look after.
“I am not young!” Reow said fiercely. Sarru only twitched his ears in laughter and continued walking. As she followed him, Reow realized that she was starting to pick up on the silent language of his body and respond in kind. It was much easier than it had ever been with Teacher. But then, Teacher’s thoughts and emotions had always been pretty simple. Hunters, it seemed, were another thing entirely.
Well, she was a Hunter, too. Or would be, if this Sarru would ever get around to teaching her. As they approached what looked like a low entrance to a den built into a hillside, Reow stopped.
“Wait,” she said. “Before we go in…I must do something.”
Sarru stopped and waited, apparently unperturbed by her sudden request. Reow felt a sudden trickle of self-doubt. Why did she have the sudden need to do this now?
Well. Her instincts had always served her well in the past. Reow gave a little shrug of her shoulders and pulled that extra sense around herself.
Sarru’s ears and tail twitched in surprise.
“Very good,” he said, his voice calm and even. “I cannot see you visually at all, and have only the faintest of quintessential sensations to clue me in. If I were not looking for you, I do not believe I would have found you. Who taught you to pull your quintessence?”
Reow dropped the sensation, gratified to see Sarru’s ears twitch again as she reappeared on the other side of him. Apparently she was still as quiet as ever when she moved.
“No one. Teacher did not know this trick,” Reow said. “I watched you on the road earlier. I wanted to learn.”
“Why?” Sarru asked, his voice soft.
Reow froze, tempted to pull her quintessence again. She had no answer.
“Is it because you are afraid I might hurt you?” he asked.
“I will kill you,” she said fiercely as anger flashed into her being. “I will watch and kill you if you try.”
“I understand that,” Sarru said, his voice unchanging, his eyes soft. “You are feral, Kita. You do not know… there are three reasons why I would never hurt you. Shall I tell you what they are?”
“Yes,” she said, her fur still bristling.
“The first is that we have a contract. When a Hunter agrees to a contract, it is like the iron in that ancient knife you carry. Nothing can break a contract, save death. And even then, if a Hunter fails, her clan is honor bound to see it fulfilled, or buy their way out. I am under contract to heal your hurts and teach you what you need to know. I would no sooner break that than I would end my own life.”
“Oh,” Reow said. She could feel her anger draining away, her fur softening as she considered these concepts.
“The second is that I am a healer. A Hunter of hurts. It goes against my training and inclination to cause hurt. The thought is completely repugnant to me. Do you understand that?”
“I think so,” Reow said.
“And the last reason, fierce kita, is that you are precious beyond belief. Do you know how many Hunters are born every year? Less than a thousand. And most of those do not live past their first season. You have survived for three years alone in the jungle with nobody but a Basreen to teach and guard you. That is extraordinary! I would help you for that reason alone, brave one. For if you were able to do that, what else might you do? What Clan of your own might you establish? What great things might you do for the Hunters as a whole?
“I cannot say,” he said, looking down at her and slow blinking a smile. “But I would like to find out. So. If you are ready, come with me, and we can begin.”
Reow looked at him for a long moment, then inclined her head and followed the healer inside.
* * *
Years later, I heard about her. At first, I didn’t believe it. How could such a tiny kitten survive in the wild? Rumors said that she’d been raised by a Basreen, but that was ridiculous. How could such stupid creatures raise a Hunter? It wasn’t possible.
But then I saw her. And her fur and eyes. She looked like a female version of her sire, and her green eyes were the mirror of my long-dead Dama’s. I would have hated her for that alone. But by that time, she had risen in stature and power, and established her upst
art clan. I would have to hide my hatred and await the proper moment to strike.
For I had sought to destroy her once. And I would not fail a second time.
# # # # #
EPILOGUE
Trello stepped to the edge of the cave and surveyed the vista in front of her. From her vantage point, she had an excellent view of the valley below, and the battle taking place there. Although the Zuul had originally seemed to hold all the advantages, the Human mercenaries had somehow been able to get some of their CASPers behind their enemy’s lines, and they had hit the Zuul once the two forces were engaged. Both Zuul tanks were out of commission, and she could tell it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the force was destroyed, too.
This was the third engagement she had been sent to observe, and she had come to a conclusion—Mother was right; something was going to have to be done about these Humans.
# # # # #
About the Editors
A bestselling Science Fiction/Fantasy author, publisher, and speaker, Chris Kennedy is a former school principal and naval aviator with over 3,000 hours flying attack and reconnaissance aircraft. Chris is also a member of the SFWA and the SCBWI.
Chris’ full-length novels on Amazon include the “Occupied Seattle” military fiction duology, the “Theogony” and “Codex Regius” science fiction trilogies and the “War for Dominance” fantasy trilogy. Chris is also the author of the #1 Amazon self-help book, “Self-Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and Into the Stores.”
Find out more about Chris Kennedy and get the free prequel, “Shattered Crucible” at:
http://chriskennedypublishing.com/
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Located in rural Tennessee, Mark Wandrey has been creating new worlds since he was old enough to write. After penning countless short stories, he realized novels were his real calling and hasn’t looked back since. A lifetime of diverse jobs, extensive travels, and living in most areas of the country have uniquely equipped him with experiences to color his stories in ways many find engaging and thought provoking.
The Good, the Bad, and the Merc: Even More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 8) Page 38
