“Felling a rekh alone is a feat,” the intruder agrees. He speaks slowly and uses words so simple that even I can easily follow. I wonder if he does that for my benefit or if he is a little bit simple, like cavemen are portrayed on Earth.
Again, he takes me in, and the intensity of his gaze gives me an immediate impulse to stroke my hair. Damn my primal instincts.
“You go,” I repeat before a thought flashes through my mind. “You have girl?”
His blue gaze goes hard. “Perhaps.”
I knew it.My grip on the spear tightens. “You have girl, is tribe mine. Youhereher!” Even with my wild grammar, I think it’s understandable. I point to the ground, making sure he knows what I mean by “here.”
“She is not a part of your tribe,” he growls, massive jaw clenching and fangs flashing. “She ismine.”
I give him my best glare. And it’s not hard—I’ll freakingkillhim if anything happens to Callie. “No. She tribe girl. Here her, or warriors will…” I jut the spear toward him, hoping I look threatening.
He glances at the saucer and at the improvements Sprisk and Cora helped us make to this little patch of jungle. “The girl is mine. I will keep her safe.”
“She safe here,” I insist. “Bring here.”
He gives me a final, invasive look before he turns and walks into the jungle without a word, climbing over the barricades and easily avoiding the various traps that Sprisk made.
He clearly has Callie, and I have to help her.
The jungle scares me like nothing else. My knees are weak from fear. But this may be my last and only chance to help her.
I follow him into the dark jungle.
3
–Kenz’ox–
I walk through the jungle, my head spinning. That was awoman. A real one. And that was a Plood ship, one that they use to travel in the stars, smooth and white, with a shimmering blue light on the inside.
The Envoy was right. Women. Plood.
Xren has changed. Everything is coming to an end. Even the jungle itself is new, with strange, blue-white, bulb-like plants shooting up everywhere. Perhaps even the Envoy’s talk about the Darkness being on Xren has a core of truth to it.
Sweet Ancestors, she was wonderful. Her scent lingers in my nose, warm and sharp and different. The shape, the voice—wrong in every way, and still the most right thing I’ve ever seen.
“How did she know about the girl?” I mutter as I walk. Possibly all females know about each other. They can likely sense each other’s presence from far away. Certainly, this woman did attractmefrom a distance. Why else did I walk straight towardher and her Plood ship? That was no coincidence. Something in me must have known she was there.
“She talked about a tribe,” I say to myself. But I saw no sign of any warriors but one, and his tracks were unusual. This part of the jungle seems to be full of strange things and aliens from other worlds. “Even if she has a tribe, perhaps they will agree to?—”
I stop in my tracks, and my hand goes to my sword. There was movement in the jungle ahead.
I curse my carelessness. Only fools speak in the jungle. The trees are always listening, hiding dangers.
I slowly pull my blade out of its sheath and take up a defensive position, staring into the darkness.
I hear a tiny noise from above right before a great weight lands on me and drops me to the ground. I lose my grip on my sword as sharp claws dig into my shoulders. A thin snarl right into my ear confirms it—it’s a drok, a rare Big that lives in the trees. It means I have to get it off me before it can get a firm grip with all eight claws, one on each paw. If it does, I will never get it off, and it will rather die than let go.
I grab for its body. It’s slick, wet, all muscle and curved spikes. The hooks bite into my hands, slicing skin to ribbons.
“Vreeeg!”I yell as I slam my back into a tree trunk, fighting desperately to get the attacker off. The pain from the drok’s finger-long claws is so intense the word starts to pull back from me, and there’s a whine in my ears. If this goes on much longer, I’ll lose and die.
The drok hangs on, its snarls getting higher in what it thinks is victory. But I can’t allow that. I have responsibilities.
Ignoring the pain, I grab one of the drok’s unattached paws with both hands and pull at it with all my might. It’s still stuck on me, but now some of its claws have dug deeper into my flesh.
Blood slicks my hands as I go down again and desperately search for my sword on the ground.
