I strained my arm, then shoulder, then back and legs as I struggled to wrench the creature’s body out of the waters, but it refused to give up trying to get a bite of me. My khatif face had narrowed, but still I, like all keelish, had a large snout with thick, sharp fangs filling my mouth, but my jaws couldn’t begin to compare to this massive mouth, tremendous teeth studding the merciless maw.

It continued to turn its head, the thick muscles of its neck tightening around my fingers and claws as it snapped frantically at my arm and head. A surge of fury drove me to continue trying to best the beast, but after several close calls, I was forced to concede to the bestial, raw power of the creature. As I began to relax my grip, there was another thrash of its entire body, and then the beast levered itself out of my grasp and fell back into the shallow waters beyond my reach. Once in the water, it spun surprisingly quickly and disappeared back into the water, its tail throwing arcs of brackish water through the air.

I stood, panting from the sudden exertions brought on from the ambush. As I stepped back, making sure I couldn’t be caught off guard by another of the predators if one approached, I began to evaluate the… whatever it was.

Since they were ambush predators, I’d thought that these creatures would be weak and easy prey. I’d been demonstrably wrong. What little I had been able to see of this… thing whilst in the flickering light of the fires was impressive. I couldn’t be sure, since it hadn’t stopped moving the entire time I’d had it in my grasp, but I’d bet days’ worth of food that it was longer than I was, nose to tail, and my best estimates put me at at least 10 feet long. Beyond that, since it didn’t need to run and carry its body like a keelish or khatif did, the beast’s body was broader and thicker than mine in every way, though it had four legs instead of a keelish’s two legs and two arms.

With how heavy the hunter was, I knew that I had no chance of dragging it out of the water with just my arm like that. I could lift a several hundred pound terrorbird with one arm, though I would strain myself doing so, and I would guess that these water… things weighed more than twice that. Maybe even as much as a thousand pounds? The thought sobered me.

More frustrating than that, though, was the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about these things. Before, I’d never encountered something that I hadn’t hunted as a human, or at least heard of, but these things were a total unknown. I’d prefer encountering the jaguar, or wild hog, or grass lion, since while those were all merciless killers, at least I’d know what they were capable of! That I’d never heard or seen or even seen signs of any of those creatures or the other more dangerous inhabitants of the Martanimis hadn’t occurred to me until then, but perhaps I could simply count myself lucky.

I shook the thoughts from my head. Regardless of wherever any other creature was, here we had these beasts, and I couldn’t be sure if they would still be hunting us when the suns rose. The thought of being actively hunted by mere beasts immediately had my hackles rising, and I resolved myself to learning how to hunt these things. But how could I get them to leave the water long enough for us to subdue them?

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Alpha, what happened?” One of the assigned sentinels rushed towards me, and I could feel her heavy steps pounding as she hastily ran towards me. Her name… Chall? Regardless, her eyes were desperately searching the darkness for whatever it was that had caused so much noise, but after a short moment, she was obviously relieved to see that I was unharmed and no apparent threat lingered.

“I briefly caught one, but it was able to escape me.” I fought to keep my anger from staining my words and tone. There was no reason for my anger, I was learning things about this environment, and the anger wouldn’t and couldn’t serve me at this time. “Thank you for keeping an eye out. Have you seen anything out there since the ambush?”

At my question, Chall’s eyes shot back to the waters, still discomfitingly still. “No, Alpha,” she replied, “but I don’t trust it. They’re out there. No question.” She looked up at me, her every movement somehow communicating her willing subservience. “How can I help?”

I clicked my teeth and, with another gesture of my hands, waved her off and back to her post.

As she left, I heard a soft splash, then a strange hissing roar from somewhere out in the dark waters. Was it one of these things? A… swamp lizard, I supposed I’d call it? But how could I trap one long enough for a pack to kill one?

A flash of inspiration occurred to me, and I looked at the head of the half-destroyed spear. Though the bottom half of the haft had snapped and been reduced to so much kindling, there remained a three foot-long haft topped by a spearhead obviously conjured and secured by an Earthcalling. I began to walk back to the center of the main body of the swarm, where my elites laid relatively near to each other. I would wake Ytte soon enough to assist my efforts in counteracting and eventually hunting the swamp lizards, but for now, I instead focused on finding something that could serve as spear hafts.

The single tree that sprouted from the center of the hillock we slept on didn’t have the right type of wood to serve as hafts–the wood was far too twisted, gnarled, and short. Maybe, if a master were here, something could be made of this wood, but I was long accustomed to using some of the long, straight roots of a burlraiz to fletch arrows and staves out of, and there were plenty within the swamp, just none nearby. My idea currently shelved, I sighed and instead decided to try to call another swamp lizard with my splashes.

…

Several hours later, I had confirmed that a certain level of splashing could draw in the swamp lizards, though I wasn’t sure what the perfect amount was, as some splashes drove them away while others were so small as to be unremarkable to the beasts. Regardless, the rest of my plan couldn’t be put into action without more spears and Ytte’s consciousness, so I finally decided to return to my rest after I felt that my experiments had borne enough fruit for the night.

I quickly found my place next to Sybil, the wolfstag pelt we’d long used as a bed left solitary, and almost sacred. Foire laid softly snoring behind Shemira, who also slept easily, though Took twitched continuously, as if dreaming of combat. Sybil had continued to cuddle the little Trai, and both stirred as I laid down, though Trai immediately settled herself. Sybil, though, opened one eye, saw it was me, and an apparently involuntary smile cracked her face as she stretched her neck out and nuzzled the crease of my jaw and neck. A mirrored smile crossed my own face, and I quickly faded back into sleep.

I woke to screeching, directly into my ear.