I taste them. The bitter stench of Lucek’s clan fills my throat.
It is ahuntingscent. Sharp with violence and feral focus.
Woven beneath the bitterness is something unnatural. A synthetic tang. The scent of dead-weaves and strange, alien threads. Someone is tracking a scrap of the females’ strange coverings.
The lifeblood in my veins goes cold.
They are not mapping our perimeter. They are not establishing borders to protect their water supply.
They are not just posturing at the borders anymore. They are here. On our territory. Actively tracking.
The burning tether anchored under my ribs yanks agonizingly tight.
This is not the distant threat we discussed in the war council. Lucek’s hunters are already close enough to smell. And the scent trail is fresh. Solmarks old at most.
Every thought of patrol routes incinerates. The heat under my forearms spikes into a blinding gold. There is nothing left in my head but a deafening roar to get back to the caverns before they do.
“Lucek’s hunters. On our border. Fresh trail,” I project as a feral roar into the open mindspace. The force of the thought physically knocks the two younger warriors backward. “We return. Now.”
I do not wait for a response.
I pivot and break into a dead sprint.
The return journey is a frantic, blurred nightmare.
I am the largest warrior in the deep dust, but my feet barely register the jagged rocks beneath me. My lungs heave, pulling in freezing air. The pain of the distance tearing at my chest spikes into pure, blinding agony.
I track the distance indra-kirbeats. Every single strike of my heel against the ground is fueled by the terrifying image of Lucek getting anywhere near her sweet storm-wind scent.
I will rip his arms off. I will crush his skull. I will?—
A devastating wave of heat explodes directly behind my ribs.
My right leg gives out.
I drop hard onto one knee in the dark dust. The impact jolts my teeth together. A terrifying ripple distorts the dense muscle across my chest. The concealed starfield skin beneath my dark forearms surges with a blinding heat.
Every single muscle in my frame locks. My bones are shifting.
My vision whites out, a blinding explosion of starlight directly behind my retinas.
I cannot breathe. I cannot move.
The terrifying paralysis holds me in a crushing grip for ten long clicks before the white light begins to recede, leaving a ringing ache in the freezing dark.
When my vision slowly clears, Rok is crouched directly in front of me. His bone-spear is raised in a defensive guard. His normally stoic face is a tight mask of poorly concealed panic. Tharn is standing five paces away, his back to us, relentlessly scanning the high black ridges for threats.
I force a harsh breath into my lungs, plant my shaking fist into the dust, and force my towering body back onto my feet.
“I am fine.”
“You are not fine,” Rok projects, his thought sharp with genuine alarm. “The change is accelerating. You are highly unstable.”
“I can kill,” I snap, jaw clenching against the residual tremor shaking my arms. “That is sufficient. Move.”
We resume the punishing sprint.
I force the pain down. My mind is already at the caverns, calculating. Entry points. Defensive positions. How many warriors I can station at the eastern ridge before Lucek’s hunters close the distance.
