Zyn smiles down at the boy, ruffling his hair again. “Correct.”
Zuul has the audacity to roll his eyes. He opens his mouth as if to argue but I don’t get to hear any of his complaints becauseI’m suddenly, very forcefully shoved behind Zyntarr who gathers Tyll too.
Dropping to a defensive stance in front of us both, I hear the most menacing growl I think I’ve ever heard coming from my mate as his tail slips around me and the little boy.
“What is it?” I whisper, desperately searching the view ahead to where Zyn is pointing the sharpened tip of his life-stone spear. I can only see the jungle that has surrounded us since we got here. All the leaves, branches, trees and roots - they all look exactly as they always have. I half expect to see one of those terrifying chimp-creatures, the mimyckah, with their uncanny ability to copy voices and their eerie too-wide smile. But I see nothing.
“Do you scent it?” Zyntarr hisses over to Zuul, who also has his spear up and ready to use. “We should take Bea and Tyll back into the skies.”
Zuul is sniffing the air again. “Whatisthat?” he says, right before a blast of light zooms past his face, skimming his cheek and hitting a tree trunk behind him. The blast leaves a singed, smoking crater in the bark. Zuul cups his bleeding cheek.
Faster than I can comprehend, Zyntarr launches his spear into the darkness of the jungle, right where the blast had come from. He doesn’t wait to see if it hits his mystery target or not, instead opting to spin on his heel and start to gather both me and little Tyll in arms.
“Leave the female!” a stern voice comes from the foliage. “Or you all die.”
Zyntarr stops reaching for us and suddenly, his hands are filled by wicked-looking daggers, pulled from belts slung on his waist and straps from his thighs. He spins, flaring out his wings to shield Tyll and I from whoever had spoken those words. “Show yourself!” he growls, his tail flicking and his feathers standing on end.
“Those females are property of Mama Z’rykby. And we are here to collect them.”
An icy chill races down my back. I haven’t heard that name since we were sold at the auction.
Peering around Zyntarr’s splayed feathers, I see three big, bug-like aliens in robes step out from the depths of the jungle. They’re holding huge, serious-looking guns that honestly resemble those big super-soaker water pistols we used to play with as kids back on Earth.
But those aren’t super-soakers. And these guys don’t want a water-fight.
Chapter 19 - Zyntarr
I do not know what I am looking at.
But I know it is not something good.
I am cursing all my feathers that I did not just pick up my female and the youngling and take to the skies as soon as I caught the scent of the strange creature.
It speaks, and something tells me its words are its own, not like the mimyckah.
They are not of these lands, for I have never heard tale of anything that resembles such a thing.
And they have stoneless weapons. I see no blades, only the things they hold in their strange, bone-like hands - the things that they now point at me, my female, and the youngling.
“I am bleeding,” Zuul says as if the sight of his own blood has offended him. He lifts his spear again, pointing it at the creatures with their strange, big eyes and twitching branches on their heads. “You will pay-”
One of the creatures unleashes its weapon aimed at the ground at Zuul’s feet. The thing had shot out a piece of lightning like they wield the powers of the Goddesses themselves. The forest debris where the strange lightning hit is blackened and smoking.
“We are here for the human females. You have one. Where are the others?”
“You will not have any females,” I growl, itching to pounce on these things and see how strongly their bone-like arms are attached to their strange bodies. “Especiallynot mine.”
“The female is not yours,” one of the creatures says, producing a flat, strangely shaped rock from within the drape of his coverings with yet another arm. He taps the rock and turns it around, showing a side that glows with markings. “As you can see here, we have the purchase receipt, and all the human females that landed here with our brother, Z’irri are the rightful property of Mama Z’rykby. We have been sent to collect her stock.”
I can feel my little Bea grip my feathers tightly at my back. I can smell her fear. A quick glance down and I see Tyll’s tiny, blunt spear poking out from beneath my left wing. It is shaking.
“Hand the female over,” the largest, talking insect commands, raising his weapon. “Or we kill you, and take her anyway.”
I open my mouth to refuse him once again, but another one of the creatures hisses to his brother instead, “remember we are to keep casualties to a minimum, Yat. This is a conservation planet, and if the Xavianns find out we have interfered with the native species-”
“Hush!” the larger creature spits. Is he possibly their Second Spear? And this ‘Ma-ma-zur-ick-bee’ they speak of may be their High Spear. “I am concerned only with retrieving the stock that Z’irri lost.”
“What do you need them for?” Zuul asks, wiping the blood from his cheek onto his chest. “We cannot spare the female. She and her kind were given to us by the Goddesses as our mates. But, if your tribe is in need of Protectors-” he slowly reaches behind me, making the creatures track his movements with their lightning weapons. I keep my spear up, pointing at the large one, but my heart drops when I see Zuul pull Tyll out from behind meby his little arm. “Perhaps you will take my son in the female’s place?”
