Keltin scowled, recalling bitter memories. Harper gently cleared his throat.
“But the sleevak you hunted that first time, that one wasn’t used for hunting?”
“No, it was part of a menagerie of creatures in a traveling show making the rounds through the bigger towns in Riltvin. The carnival was stopped outside of Jackson when the man caring for the animals made a mistake while trying to feed the sleevak and got himself killed. The boil got loose and started terrorizing the countryside. My father was contacted almost immediately, but he thought that this might be a good opportunity for my first solo hunt. It took me four days to track the thing down. By then, it had killed more than half a dozen livestock and seriously hurt two people, including a child.”
Keltin stared at a point in space somewhere beyond the table in front of him as his mind went back in time.
“I finally tracked the thing down to a farmer’s henhouse. It had torn away the flimsy wire on one side and gorged itself on everything inside. It was dark, and I couldn’t see very well, but I fired at its still form as it lay sleeping against the back wall. It came awake like a demon with a knot in its tail. It threw itself at me, and was only stopped by the undamaged fencing on the side I was standing on. It savaged and tore at the wire, trying to get at me. I emptied all five chambers of my rifle into the beast, and still it kept coming. The wire was snapping under the strain, so I rushed forward with the Ripper and started stabbing at it with the point. The boil was little more than a bloody mass of mangled flesh by the time it died, pierced by the spike of the Ripper and torn in more than a dozen places by its own mindless rage against the thin wire of the henhouse.”
Keltin looked up to see Harper watching him silently. He gave the newspaperman the ghost of a smile and a dry, humorless chuckle. “Not much of a heroic start to a new beast hunter’s career, was it?”
He was answered by a screaming wail from the curtained-off section of the bunkhouse. Keltin and Harper jumped to their feet and made their way back to the wounded field worker. The injured man’s face was red as a beet as he gasped and cried, cursing the pain and begging for whiskey. He was given a long draught until he started to choke on it, then proceeded to groan and gnaw at the spent shell casing that Parse had slipped between his teeth as he changed his dressings.
Keltin stood at a short distance and studied the wounds. Some were clearly the result of bites, with a semi-circle of puncture marks with two deeper than the rest where the canines had penetrated the flesh. Several smaller wounds showed where the beast had unsuccessfully tried to gain another grip with its powerful jaws. Focusing his attention on the most clearly defined bite marks, he studied their radius and estimated the size of the beast’s mouth. He continued to examined the marks until they were covered by fresh dressings, then turned away. Harper stood before him, his eyes serious and searching.
“Do you know what sort of beast it was now?” he asked.
Keltin nodded. “I’m almost certain. At the very least, I know what to look for to track it. We’ll start in the morning as soon as there’s light.”
Harper leaned in close to whisper in Keltin’s ear. “Are you planning on camping outside?”
Keltin had to wait until the worker stopped screaming before answering. “We’ll see if Parse can let us stay in the barn. It’ll be safer than outside, and... quieter than in here.”
* * *
The air was full of the coldness of dew as heavy gray clouds loomed overhead. The seasonal rains would arrive any day now. Keltin hoped that the workers could bring in the majority of their crops before then. Of course, some small amount of rain wouldn’t spoil the crops immediately, but it would mean that their remaining time was quickly running out.
Still, Keltin was no Sky Talker, and had no control over the weather. He would have to focus on what he was hired to do, and let the foremen worry about their harvests. He crouched down to examine the ground where Parse had said that the attack had taken place two days before. He had no expectation of finding a definite trail away from the scene of violence, but hoped that the wet earth might reveal at least one identifying mark or clue for him. Sure enough, a few minutes’ searching revealed a cat-like paw-print with clear claw marks at the front of six padded toes. Half-an-hour later and several yards away, Keltin found another set of prints. He nodded in satisfaction.
“I know for certain what we’re tracking now,” he said.
Harper looked at the distance between the sets of prints. “Either this beast has an abnormally long stride, or it’s got to be quite the giant.”
“It’s the stride. What we’re looking for is called a ‘whip leg’. Its legs have three joints and roll like cables or ropes as it runs. It’s incredibly fast, has a head like a rock, and isn’t afraid of large groups of men.”
Harper’s expression was grim with a twinge of discontent. “I suppose we’ll need to travel especially carefully to find it.”
“Not necessarily. In fact, you can walk comfortably today. While we don’t necessarily need to traipse around banging pots and pans, making a show of not being cautious will likely draw it to us, looking for a meal. We just need to be ready when it attacks.”
The newspaperman swallowed. “All right. I’ll follow your lead.”
“Actually, it would be safer if you walk in front. It may come from behind.”
The day passed in the slow, anxious tedium of a beast hunt. Every falling leaf forced them to stop, listening and looking for any sign of their quarry. Harper was clearly on edge, and Keltin found himself equally bothered, though for an entirely different reason. He couldn’t stop thinking of Elaine and her family. He knew it was distracting him, but despite his frustration, he just couldn’t help it. Harper’s candid appraisal of conditions in Malpin was more worrying than any of the beasts in Dhalma Province. The more Keltin thought about it, the more some secret part of him wished that he could abandon this job and go north right now. He wouldn’t, of course. He had a duty to perform, and people were counting on him. But it still rankled him. Perhaps he would try writing a letter to Mr. Destov to ask for any updates he might have received from his family.
He was trying to compose a letter in his head when the beast struck. All was silent and still, then suddenly there was a rush from the left. There was no time for aiming or even clearly registering what was coming at them. Keltin saw a blur out of the corner of his eye, turned, and shot wildly from the hip. The blur stumbled, more from the force of the shot than any sort of accuracy in the placement of the bullet. Keltin used the spit-second of hesitation to pull his rifle up into his shoulder and fire again. He was almost certain the second shot connected, but the whip leg continued to come without hesitation, making a direct path for Harper.
Fortunately, by either design or dumb luck, Harper didn’t try to fire at the beast or even attempt to run. He merely fell over. He landed backwards on his rump and the beast sailed over him, scrambling and skittering through the underbrush as it tried to turn with its long, coiling legs. Keltin aimed a killing shot for its chest but the beast gave up trying to turn around and launched itself onward through the woods and away from them.
Keltin stood rooted to the spot for a long moment, waiting to see if the whip leg would double-back and attack again. Eventually, he realized it wasn’t coming back, and relaxed slightly. Harper had remained on the ground, though he had managed to pull a pistol from his belt, swinging it around to aim at every falling leaf around them. Keltin spoke to him softly.
“I think it’s gone. Are you all right?”
The newspaperman relaxed slightly, running a trembling hand over his eyes.
“Yes, yes I think so. Hex, but that was close.”
“Do you think you can stand?”
“I think so.”
Harper accepted a hand as Keltin pulled him to his feet.
“It came so fast,” said Harper. “I wanted to dodge away from it, but all I had time for was falling backwards.” He gave a shaken, rueful smile.
“Not very graceful, I suppose.”
“It probably saved your life. I know I hit that whip leg at least once, so there should be a blood trail. It’ll likely be a long one, considering how fast that thing can move.”
Harper clenched his jaw and nodded.
“All right. Let’s go get the boil.”
* * *
Keltin slipped off his glove and rubbed stiff fingers into his weary eyes. It was getting colder, a rare sign of the end of day when the sun and sky were largely hidden by the surrounding trees. He stopped and judged his bearings. The blood trail had carried them some distance beyond the farms owned by Mr. Whitt, but he hesitated to turn around and go back. Parse and his workers would not be consoled by tales of a wounded beast fleeing into the forest. Besides, It would look bad to his employer if Keltin allowed a worker to be seriously injured without bringing down the beast that had done it.
“It’s getting late,” said Harper.
Keltin glanced up at the small patch of sky visible through the tree tops.
“It should start getting dark soon,” he agreed.
“Should we make camp?”
“I’m thinking about it. It’s never ideal to make camp in the open with a known beast on the loose, but if we go much farther we won’t be able to see this blood trail anyway.”
“Should we go back to the nearest farm owned by Mr. Whitt?”
Keltin was considering his answer when the stillness of the forest was broken by a distant yowl and an answering roar. He froze, trying to register a direction for the sound. There was another primal scream, and Keltin rushed in its direction, moving with careful haste, his rifle held in front of him. As he drew nearer to the sounds, he became convinced that he was hearing two different beasts in the same location. He wasn’t familiar enough with the whip leg’s vocalizations to be certain that it was one of the beasts, but he was sure that he had heard at least one of the beasts before. The shrieking wail gnawed at his memory, and he struggled to recall what creature made the sound even as he continued to rush towards it.
Suddenly he broke into the opening of a small clearing and was met with a spectacle of extreme savagery. Two beasts rolled together, lashing and slashing at each other with reckless abandon. One of the beasts was clearly the whip leg, its elongated limbs flying around the twisting bodies like braids on a dancing schoolgirl. The other beast...
Keltin sucked in a breath as he recognized the mottled green, scaly body, the bony crest around its head and the four gleaming eyes glaring out over a mouth full of knife-like fangs. A sleevak. Harper crashed into the open beside him. Keltin spun on him, almost lifting him off the ground in his haste to push the man back into cover. As soon as they were behind a fallen log Keltin dropped down and pulled his rifle into position, ready to kill either of the two monsters before them.
The beasts were too involved in their savage combat to pay the two men any notice. They’d ceased their violent rolling and now stood a short distance apart, squaring off and posturing as they slowly circled each other. It was immediately clear to Keltin that the whip leg was losing the fight. While its rock-hard head showed only superficial bleeding wounds, its front left shoulder had suffered a savage bite and was bleeding heavily. It moved with a marked limp, and it was clear that speed was no longer the advantage of the lighter, more agile beast. Meanwhile, the sleevak showed little damage.
Keltin was in the process of examining its superficial wounds when it launched itself forward at the whip leg. The lighter beast tried to dodge to the side but was too slow. The sleevak took hold of the whip leg in the same place where it had bitten before and clamped down. Unlike a tamarrin hound that would have gone for the throat and done a death shake, the sleevak instead used its hooked teeth to keep its prey from escaping as the long claws of its forelimbs raked over the whip leg’s exposed body. The trapped beast cried out in desperation, but it didn’t have the strength to break away a second time. Flesh, muscle, and tendon were torn away, and soon the dying beast’s exposed viscera was steaming in the chill air, its long legs collapsing to the earth to twitch like bits of string tugged by a housecat.
Victorious, the sleevak immediately began to feast on its fallen opponent, tearing dripping chunks from its flanks and swallowing them whole. Keltin took the chance to examine the sleevak as it fed. Looking closer, he realized that the bony frill around its head had been distinctively cropped, and a blue-tinged brand had been burned into its flank.
Harper inched closer to him, his voice barely more than a breath in his ear.
“Are you going to shoot it?” he asked.
Keltin hesitated, then shook his head. “No. Someone owns that monster.”
He pointed at the brand and the cropped frill. Harper shook his head.
“But you and Ross are the only hunters working for Mr. Whitt. Where did it come from?”
“Obviously, someone at one of the neighboring farms around here has hired their own beast hunters. Ones that wrangle sleevaks.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Right now, we’re going to hurry back to the nearest farm. I’m not going to sleep out in the open with sleevaks loose if I can possibly help it.”
“What about tomorrow then?”
Keltin felt his jaw clench as he spoke through his teeth. “Tomorrow, we’re going to find out who’s fool crazy enough to use sleevaks to hunt here.”
Chapter 8 – Prejudice
Keltin was angry. He knew it. He could almost see himself from the outside as he practically stomped through the woods in search of the next farm. In a distant, detached part of his mind he knew that he was being irrational, but the blurred line between justifiable outrage and blind anger was too vague to distinguish.
Sleevaks were dangerous. They killed indiscriminately, were notoriously hard to handle, and were all-but impossible to control. Keltin had only ever known one group of sleevak wranglers personally. A group of Heteracks from Olsivo, they had been a part of the Krendaria Campaign. Under the direction of their leader Captain Rok, each of the wranglers had been arrogant, clumsy, and spiteful, nearly killing Keltin and his friends with their stupid pets, then playing the part of the victim when their precious monsters were killed in self-defense. Worse, they had demanded compensation, not in money, but in vengeance, demanding that Bor’ve’tai and his fellow Loopi be cast out of the camp to survive on their own in the beast-infested woods. Keltin thought of the blind prejudice of the Heteracks and felt the glowing coals of anger flare yellow-hot inside of him. He’d never been so close to hunting something other than a beast as those plaguing wranglers.
Of course, the sleevak he had seen the day before couldn’t be owned by the same wranglers. They had all died in a brutal attack by a tusked giant. But the fact that yesterday’s sleevak was owned by someone else hardly changed Keltin’s mood. Whoever it was, they were risking the lives of every field worker in the region, not to mention Keltin, Ross, and any other legitimate beast hunters working the same area.
Harper cleared his throat. Had he been trying to speak with him? Keltin had been so caught up in his dark thoughts that he hadn’t noticed. The calmer portion of his mind told him that he was being reckless and forced him to slow down and travel more carefully. There were still dangerous beasts around after all, including the sleevaks.
He forced himself to bury his anger enough to speak with the newspaperman.
“Did you say something?”
“I was going to ask whether you think we’ll find the owner of the sleevaks at the next farm?”
“We’ll know when we get there.”
“Have you considered what you will say once you meet them?”
“I need to find out how many boils they’ve got out here, and where they’re deploying them. I need to know what –if anything— they’re doing to control their monsters. And I want them to know that I don’t appreciate them using sleevaks without letting any of their neighbors know about it.”
“They may not be very ea
ger to hear what you have to say.”
Keltin spat. “That’s too plaguing bad, because they’re going to hear it. And they’d better listen, or they may just start finding all of their precious pets dead in the woods with bullet holes in their ugly heads.”
They pushed on until they broke through the trees to find a field of workers harvesting gourds. Keltin was looking beyond the field at the farmhouse on the other side when he heard a distant, familiar shriek in that direction. Sleevaks. Turning, he made his way around the fence surrounding the field, well-aware of the cautious looks coming his way from the field workers. One of them called out to him.
“Ho there!” he said, making his way across the field to intercept him. Keltin noticed the man’s hand hovering an inch away from the handle of a pistol in his belt.
“Just where do you think you’re going?” demanded the man.
“Are you the foreman of this farm?”
“That’s right. Who are you?”
“I’m a beast hunter hired to protect some of the farms around here.”
“We’ve already got our own beast hunters.”
“That’s why I’m here. I think you have some sleevak wranglers working for you. Is that right?”
“Suppose we do? I don’t see where it’s any of your business.”
Keltin’s eyes narrowed. “It’s my business because I’m traipsing around these woods risking my hide to protect men like you, and I don’t appreciate having to watch my back from both beasts and sleevaks at the same time. Now, I’m going to go have a word with those wranglers. Are you going to stop me?”
The foreman seemed to take Keltin’s measure for a moment before looking away and waving him towards the farmhouse.
“Makes no difference to me,” he muttered. “I’m not overly fond of those slimy boils myself. Just don’t cause any trouble for my men.”
Dangerous Territory Page 10
