Vessa wrinkled her nose in disgust. There was no part of her being that wished to know where the tentacle-like appendage had come from on it.
It was some ungodly amalgamation she’d never seen before. Its face was similar to a hound’s, except it had no external ears,and its nostrils were mere slashes on its snout. With a hunched back and limbs that were too long, it moved in an uncanny way, as if it had seen another creature move on all fours and decided to imitate it. Its legs were formed with hocks, but its arms were strangely human-like, down to its hands with long fingers tipped in sharp claws.
The beast stood to its full height with an animalistic snarl. It had to be at least ten or eleven span tall. It looked down at her, sizing her up, its jagged teeth on full display.
War cries and commands were taken up from the horde at the same time. The first rank pulled away from the greater mass. They’d be upon her soon. Lightning sparked down from the sky behind them in dancing, vivid-blue bolts.
Vessa smiled. It was a good night for a battle.
Her hand tightened around the hilt of her raze sword as she lunged toward the creature. One of its long arms swiped out to meet her, claws racing toward her torso. While retracting the blade, she ducked at the last second. Before the beast could react, she extended her steel again. Into its side.
The howl it let loose rattled through her as it viciously lunged at her. Vessa danced away, putting space and her blade between them—its jaws snapping closed on air in her wake. Silver blood covered the steel of her raze sword like metallic ink.
Right then, Kedar uncloaked beside her. He stood not even a span away, his crimson-lit plasma dirk in hand.
“By the Nine, announce yourself,” she snapped. “I could have killed you.”
“I see you’re alive,” he drawled, turning his head to the side with his chin tilted down to take her in. His eyeshields burned red, and she had the distinct feeling he was checking her for injury.
“Of course I am, and look how productive I’ve been. I found the end of the blizzard and this welcome party was waiting forme on the other side.” She waved her hand casually at the war band rampaging toward them.
The beast took a stumbling step back. Its diamond pupils dilated and affixed on Kedar’s plasma dirk with something like… fear? Respect? It let out a low-pitched chuff between heavy sniffing.
“What in the Pits is it doing?” she asked.
It touched two claws to its cheek and brought them down in some unknown gesture. Kedar mirrored it with his fingers.
Then the creature fully disappeared.
“Uh, what?” Vessa asked, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you were feeding it, too, and itknowsyou.”
Kedar huffed out a laugh. “This is not my doing. My ancestors made a pact with the Dark Star ones long ago. It must have been indebted to an Orcru here, but their oath to the Xaal outweighs all else.”
Before she could fully digest his response, he bounded forward to meet the horde. Vessa stared at his back—and those powerful legs—in honest bewilderment. If she awoke to find this was all a fever dream, she wouldn’t be surprised.
Until then, she had Orcru to kill.
She ran forward on the far left side of Kedar, letting out a Seken battle cry. A reckless energy filled her. There was something thrilling about being outnumbered. The feeling reminded her of fighting the Zaram. Kedar looked at her sharply before bellowing his own war call. How many times had they done the very same thing in the past?
When he collided with the Orcru moments later, his impact staggered half a dozen of them back. He was an entire force of nature.
Vessa took a more singular approach. The first Orcru to reach her was dual-wielding short axes, and a string of thick saliva hung from his tusks. She leapt at him, and her foot connectedwith his chest in a powerful kick. Her opponent reeled backward, his weapons sent flying, and he brought a handful of his comrades down with him as he crashed into the snow. One of his axes landed square in the face of another Orcru.
“Already at four,” Kedar bellowed from somewhere inside the mass.
She narrowed her gaze as she dodged a club swinging at her head. Was he…? They used to count their kills in big battles. Competing to see who could get more, they would shout their numbers across the battlefield at each other.
Vessa couldn’t let him win.
Quickly, she stepped on top of the downed Orcru and stabbed him through the heart. The two pinned beneath him met similar fates. “Four,” she called. Axe face counted, too.
“Six,” Kedar shouted.
Shit.He couldn’t be rightandwin the kill count. “Five,” she called out as her blade cut off an Orcru’s head in one fell swoop. “Six!” That one had practically impaled himself on her sword.
Vessa and Kedar fell into an old rhythm. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there. An unexplainable synergy existed between them. During the war against the Zaram, even her father, who had greatly disapproved of how close she was to Kedar, told her he’d never seen a pair move like they did. Like they were one soul in two bodies, dancing before the gods.
They’d saved each other countless times. Shored up the other’s weak side. They were mere extensions of each other. Seamless.
