It is not always undesirable for your prey to escape. They learn from the last hunt and make the second much more enjoyable.
-From Aphorisms: 1:2-3
The neonate was… exhausted.
She wanted to sleep.
It had been so tempting to just find a hidden nook of the temple. It had been quite some time since she had been awake for this long, or had to keep going while this injured.
She slipped back out onto the surface.
Thwack! Thwack!
You have got to be kidding me! She almost snarled as she shifted to blend.
It was the pair of males from earlier, the one with the club and the other with nothing.
Still. Nothing.
Thwack!
And they were still going at it.
Idiot could at least break off a branch. Why hadn’t he? She had found a name for him at least.
No time, sneak away. Her Instinct hissed, pulling her towards Trapmaker’s territory.
She shifted.
Snap…
She stepped on a dry twig.
----------------------------------------
Sorry Kiddo. Silver lining is that I managed to sneak that one past Maruc.
----------------------------------------
Cursing her exhaustion, she watched as both males turned and snarled, not quite seeing her based on their confused blue facial patterns.
They scrambled towards her all the same, knocking each other down and scratching and biting viciously.
“Outta my way, grub-face!”
“Yur in mine! Jerk!” Idiot slurred slightly.
“Gods damn you both!” She hissed, shifting into the black and red and rushing for them, “I don’t have time for you!”. She would make them leave her alone.
They would all learn this lesson.
All of them!
Fight!
The warrior jumped onto the armed male’s shoulders, slamming him into the dirt. Club. She named him, just to keep it simple. The unarmed male, Idiot, snarled and rushed in, towering over her.
Quickly! Her Instinct growled, pulling towards the moon, which continued to traverse the sky.
The frustrated predator pulled back from Idiot’s snapping teeth, the bite coming in pitifully slow. If it was any slower, she would have culled him and saved herself from the trouble of hunting down Trapmaker.
I shouldn’t lie to myself. She would still kill that Coward.
She grabbed his hips and rammed her knee in between his legs, once, twice, three times. The snarl became a whimper and she hissed slashing his face with her claws.
“I don’t even need my knife for you two! Flee!” She snapped.
The other had gotten up and swung at her with the club. Compared to Axmaker it was sluggish, awkward, futile. She sidestepped and bit his wrist.
Blood fountained as he howled.
The club fell from his hand as she bit down harder.
She caught it and let go of him, stepping back and taking the new weapon in both hands.
Thwack!
He staggered back, swearing, hand to the side of his head, eye already swelling shut. The predator felt a tug and then something grabbed her ankle, starting to pull.
Without even looking she cracked Idiot right on the knuckles, hearing a crunch as he howled and scramble awkwardly off.
Weaving slightly from the sound of it.
Concussed?
What? She didn’t understand what her Instinct was implying with those feelings.
Nevermind. Fight!
Club started to stagger up and she whacked him again, swinging even harder, putting her hips into it.
BANG!
More! Her Instinct hissed happily as he fell back, struggling to stand, whimpering.
CRACK!
The little monster indulged herself and bashed him straight in the jaw. Teeth and shards of teeth glittered in the night as they sailed out of Club’s mouth, clattering against the wood of a cypress knee.
He staggered away, and she rushed after him, pulling free of something that snagged her belt as she continued her pursuit. Landing a good hit on Club’s tail as she did.
“Flee! Or die!” She didn’t mean it.
He doesn’t know that.
Good. Learned.
He fled. She threw a rock at him for good measure.
Thunk!
It bounced off of the back of Club’s head and he fell again, scrambling up and whining. Rushing through the underbrush and along some ruins before swinging off with a vine into the low canopy before he was gone.
She snorted.
She looked at the bloody club, pulling a hunk of tooth out of it, understanding the shape better now. Running a hand over the round ball at the end, protruding like an ax head, and it had similar heft.
Knot gives it weight. She gave another test swing.
Spherical, one point of contact. More force.
She liked it, though she didn’t quite understand the point her Instinct was trying to make.
Which hand should I use it in though? She could use it in either, but she should see how it felt first before anything else happened. The handle was a bit longer than she would have liked for one handed use, but she could easily hold it higher up.
It was nice to wield in both hands. And maybe she could protect her forearm with the excess handle while wielding both weapons. But which hand?
The warrior placed her hand on the hilt of her-
It was gone.
The matte black blade!
It was gone!
Her eyes narrowed, and it was like the world was tinted red.
She roared in fury, uncaring as panic and rage tried to murder eachother inside her mind.
Where is it? I need it! It’s mine!
She searched desperately for it.
Mine! Her Instinct echoed.
It couldn’t be far, it must be where that brush had caught at her belt.
There wasn’t any brush there though.
Wha-
Something changed, the air shifted, she sensed movement, and her Instinct slammed into her body.
Move!
It yanked her as hard as she could to the left. The matte black blade whispered through the space where she had been standing with the deadly grace it always had.
A camouflaged hand held it, which quickly shifted into the form of another Greenscale adopting his black and red.
A familiar pattern on his chest.
Design!
She snarled and swung the club at him. She had lost so much, she would not lose the hero Gix’s blade as well.
He dodged, starting to twist.
Two!
She jumped back as the glittering obsidian knife in his off hand whistled through the air. Its serrated blade seeking her blood.
“Damn you!” she snarled again.
He flashed raw sienna amusement at her, and she hissed. She let her tongue flicker.
He is using the moss. She still needed to reapply her own. And he didn’t smell like anyone else's blood.
He’s searching for his kill as well. She snarled and swung with both hands and he had to leap away from her.
“I have gotten better, I wished to challenge myself. And you.” He bowed his head ever so slightly, his yellow eyes not leaving her. “Accept this kindness. If you live.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She had never seen what it looked like when she blended in. She wondered if it looked like this.
He vanished in ripples, like a handful of pebbles thrown into the water. Blotches of his body just becoming what was around him, holding his weapons behind his back so that they wouldn’t give him away. Too dark to spot footprints.
Quickly she shifted as well, moving back and away, needing to get up into the trees, needing the moss. He’ll smell me. This was all so familiar.
She didn’t see the knife, but she heard it. It was like the hum of a mosquito. A deadly shadow in the night.
She knocked the blade away with the club and kicked, hitting something that materialized as Design for a moment as her strike landed, his pattern not matching correctly as he was pushed back unexpectedly.
She heard movement nearby. Saw his eyes open fully and look in the same direction before glancing back at her and stabbing with the much more visible obsidian blade. It glittered in the moonlight.
She had already leaped backwards though, taking advantage of his moment of distraction. The neonate stuck the club in her jaws, climbing up into the canopy franticly. Tearing free some moss she scrubbed with it before plugging her wounds more thoroughly, snarling in pain. Not caring that it wasn’t the herb.
I can’t afford to bleed. Dealing with infection after.
Mine! Her Instinct fumed.
She quickly wrapped the club with the moss as well. Better a dark color that wasn’t correct than a bright color.
She wanted to snarl. It was her knife.
I have to get it back.
She remembered this from before, and knew that she would need all her cunning. Once she was sure she broke line of sight she cut hard to the left.
Staying low.
Taking the long way round and sticking to the shadows, bark scraping against her belly as the little predator hunted for any sign of Design.
Should have grabbed some rocks. Or those earthbone spheres. She could have used them as distractions. Something she had done often enough that she should have thought of it.
The wind blew. A dead branch fell from higher in the canopy.
Down below, three lessers ran from an apex she didn’t know. He whirled a strip of thick hide faster and faster, staring at the straggler in the back.
Slingwielder.
Damnit why didn’t I think of that?! She directed the thought at her Instinct. She could be peppering Design with rocks right then.
The lesser female tried to dodge and weave, but drew up short when she came to the cliff. The individual bones of her tail were visible, clearly she had been starving for quite some time now.
Slingwielder let fly his missile.
Pop! The string snapped as he let go! Stone buzzing.
CRUNCH! The stone found its mark.
Slingwielder growled in satisfaction when it hit her in the back of the skull and she crumpled backward, twitching. Moving closer with a hiss as a dark pool covered the flattened grass beneath the lesser.
“All over soon.” He muttered. His prefixes were strangely apologetic as he spoke to the starving females twitching form.
More than one reason to be silent.
Knife!
She almost hissed in frustration, her eyes mostly shut. Was her Instinct going to start repeating ‘knife’ like it had with the leav-
Quiet!
Mmmrrrrehnnnrrrreeeeeeee
The softest sound of a branch creaking. Hard to make out amongst all the others.
Wrong! Move! Her Instinct screeched.
Not in time with the wind! She heard almost silent footsteps!
The neonate leaped up and dove to a vine, feeling the air of one of the blades passing. It was eerie, fighting in silence. Without the black and red. She let go and landed on the next branch.
She could see Design running down the first and leaping across, cutting her off her route to the trunk. He slashed with the obsidian blade, which she dodged, and stabbed with the matte black blade, which she leaped away from.
Too sharp!
He dove at her, tackling her down onto her back, her wounds flaring again. She ground her teeth and franticly kept the black blade at bay with the club, catching his other wrist with her empty palm. She had to jerk her head to the side as the blade stabbed down.
Take it!
She could bite it! Then she’d have it again. It was hers!
Idiot, what do you mean bite the knife? She’d have to take it from him.
With a silent snarl she slammed her head into his snout. Not snapping because neither of them wanted to deal with the apex’s sling.
He grunted softly and she managed to get a foot under him and kick him off. Sticking the club in her teeth and sliding to the underside of the branch, crawling quickly to avoid dripping onto the big male below.
She made it to the trunk, scrambling higher and higher, leaping across to a fresh tree and slipping into a tangle of vines to distort her silhouette and break line of sight both.
Not enough, he knows stealth too.
She immediately slid out the other side and sprung behind the trunk to another tree, wriggling deep into a dense patch of ferns and orchids. Surrounded by strong fruity smells and strange dazzling colors in the night, pattern matching perfectly.
The little warrior searched, but Design had also disappeared.
Shit. Much better than last time.
Her Instinct grunted.
Slowly, painstakingly, she slid out of the trunk’s foliage, searching again for her foe, soft gray-blue nostalgia filling her thoughts. Remembering the last fight.
The apex below had reached the still twitching lesser. It had been only moments. With a delicate touch, the big sling wielding male slit the jerking female’s throat. He stayed with her until she went still. His hand taking hers.
Kindness? It… She didn’t have time to process it.
She kept searching for Design. Wishing she could change the color of her bright pink tongue.
Slingwielder stood and walked back out of the tall grass. He started after the rest of the lessers.
As much to not be singled out as to help the brood?
Focus! There!
She froze. Staring. She thought she could see the pattern. She slunk closer. Looking harder at it. Something was… wrong…
Not moving…
It was a decoy. Like last time. And like last time… he would be nearby. She slunk farther forward. She moved to the underside of the branch as she climbed ever closer.
Good. Hidden from above. Her Instinct hissed.
She timed her movements to the swaying of the trees. Letting just the tip of her tongue flicker out. She still couldn’t smell him. Only the moss.
She ached for her knife. She wanted, no, needed it back.
One of the few things left now.
Movement there. Her Instinct slid her eyes over.
It was slight, off to the right and a layer above. And the silhouette was right. She could almost make out the tail. Held low. Not so obvious that she thought it was another decoy.
And if that is the tail, then that is the chest. And it was moving.
The camouflage was well done, almost perfect. He even had a good vantage from there.
Almost perfect isn’t enough. She felt smugly orange with that thought.
The hunter backed up into the shadows again, taking her time watching the figure breathe. Once she was in the deepest shadows, she glanced up. Spotting a cloud moving towards the moon. She looked back at the figure. He was still there.
She waited.
The cries of pain were dying down. There was another from Trapmaker’s territory. Horrible and prolonged.
Go! Now!
And she couldn’t, not until she got her knife back. Not until she dealt with Design. She needed her weapon and she couldn’t have him stalking her through whatever nonsense that worthless lesser Trapmaker had done.
She wanted to snap her jaws, frustrated that she had to keep quiet. Frustrated that she didn’t have her knife.
The cloud moved in front of the moon. It was seven eighths of the way through the sky.
Fuck. She had to make this quick.
Like a whisp of smoke, she slid up higher into the trees. Moving quickly, grinding her teeth on the club as her wounds twinged again. The moss had worked better at stuffing them closed though, and they hadn’t started dripping yet.
She didn’t look forward to cleaning any of them.
Do not tempt fate! Her Instinct snarled.
She got up into the wind, navigating by Zasa’avi’s eyes alone. She ran, one foot in front of the other. She got above Design.
She dropped behind him, bringing the club down with both hands on his head!
It squashed into a bundle of reeds, tinted with pigments and mud. A string was tied to around several in the center.
Shit! Two decoys!
Dodge!
She spun, just in time to knock aside the obsidian knife with her club, her knife leaving a thin bleeding line along the side of her throat. Sticking into the tree behind her and pulling free easily.
Compete!
It became a matter of life and death in an instant. And all she could do was try to keep up with the less worn out male. She couldn’t even attack. The thrill, fickle as it was, returned! And she found herself deriving morbid pleasure fighting on the line that was her own blade turned against her.
I can’t kill him! He is one of the best here!
It was surprising, impressive, captivating!
Wasting time!
Shit! I need to regroup! Need to think. She had to get the drop on him somehow.
The neonate ducked, covered in small cuts now as well.
She tore the moss at her feet from the tree and swung with it. Her knife in Design’s hand sliced through it like it wasn’t there, the obsidian blade snagging and pulling it out of her claw. That was fine.
Her foe’s eyes widened.
Thwack!
She brought the club down in a one-handed strike right into his shoulder, staggering him. He had pulled to the right at the last moment, it would have hit him in the head otherwise.
The neonate dove over the side of the branch, grabbing a vine and sliding down to the ground below, crouching so she was hidden from above by the tall grass.
Keep moving!
She rushed away from the spot. She didn’t have any moss and was bleeding!
Shit!
Learn! Decoy!
She could try it, she didn’t have any other plan. She’d need to quickly gather the grass and-
She tripped over something.
The dead female. She felt at the cut on her own throat.
Inspiration bloomed. Better idea.
Agree! Quick!
The neonate tore the belt off of her body, tying it loosely around some grass and ferns, but it fell to the ground. Come on! She heard his growl from the canopy. Heard him slide down and land, moving into the grass cautiously.
She found some small dead bushes, choked out by the other plants.
Two corpses to keep me from becoming one.
She balanced the belt there, acting quickly, making sure to smear some of her blood onto the plants.
She could hear him slinking closer. She couldn’t see him yet though.
All the senses. Trick them all.
She lifted the head of the female, sticking her hand into the wound and smearing it onto the back of her own head. She shifted her pattern. Making herself look gaunt and starved.
The little hunter smeared blood all over her neck and body, getting as much of the other female’s scent on her as she could.
Quick!
She shoved the corpse off the cliff and laid on her back. Her club hidden in the mud.
He rushed forward only a moment later. His yellow eyes locked onto the belt, and without hesitation he thrust into the decoy in the gloom.
His eyes turned to her for a moment. She stayed still, holding her breath, staring, straining to the pattern that the corpse had had.
His tongue flickered out, his eyes narrowing.
It was so hard to not look right at him.
He lifted the knife.
Her heart was pounding.
He sniffed with his nostrils and lowered the blade contemplative.
She thought of the time she had been washed downstream by the river, using the memory to make herself keep holding her breath.
Splash!
He jerked up, tongue flickering out, then snarled in rage, walking past towards the edge of the cliff.
“Teeth of the gods… got away…” He whispered, looking down at the dead lesser, thinking it was her. “Wait… not moving?” He took one step back.
The neonate sprung to her feet, silent, mud splattering as her club swung into the back of his head.
CRACK!
He staggered, almost going over.
No! The knife! She couldn’t lose that!
Her hand shot out, claws sinking into his wrist.
Design snarled and she bashed him in the head again, kicking the back of his knee, hissing furiously. He fell to a kneeling position, and she thwacked him again with the club.
“My knife!” She bellowed, irate.
She planted her foot on his back, getting a hold of the crossguard, and wrenched it from his grip.
He yelped as he tumbled, grabbing the edge with his claws. She tossed both of her weapons behind her, away from being lost forever, and got to the edge.
She growled and glared down at her rival.
He started to pull himself up. With a roar she snatched his hands, her claws sinking deep into them, and she head-butted him again to knock him back down. She pushed her claws deeper, wanting to impair his climbing.
He panted, whining in pain, dazed, and she got right up into his face, glaring.
“Never touch my knife again.” She whispered, and through the haze in his eyes she saw the fear.
That dark spot in her soul lapped it up, and, with a heave of her whole body, the little victor tore his claws from the soil and flung him out and away from the edge.
She watched him tumble backwards, worried for a moment that she had killed him. But he twisted, spreading his arms and legs to control his fall before quickly shifting into a dive right at the end.
When he surfaced she heard him snarl. She kicked a rock over the side in response, knowing it wouldn’t hit him. It was too far to the right. She flashed bright orange at him as she did before turning away.
----------------------------------------
I could see Maruc building up his curse, and I leapt into the breach!
“About that wager I won, I would like my boon. Now please.”
He jerked and turned glaring at me with eyes of boiling blood. Fine. What would you get? It hit Him then. You… THIEF! He couldn’t send a curse my way, he was in my debt. He owed me something. I wish the Kiddo could see… well actually no, that’d be bad right now.
“What I desire is simple Maruc, nothing onerous, or humiliating. Though by rights I could claim all Your followers if I wanted.” I had to, it was just too good.
Name. Your. Boon. Thief.
“Do not, by action or inaction, allow any interference, from any of us or our enemies, in the outcome of what will happen for the rest of tonight. Let the pieces land where they may.”
Done. He sulked, but I could have been meaner about it.
“Aaaaand-” I added, dragging it out. He snarled and glared, rage so hot I thought I was carrying the flame again.
“Kidding! Kidding. Obviously, I only get the one boon right now.” I didn’t, I had named two things on my end, but I liked having a backup plan.
Do me proud Kiddo.
----------------------------------------
Time! Moon! She glanced up.
Shit.
She had to go.
He would be slow climbing up with injured hands, but she didn’t need anyone else beating her to Trapmaker.
She collected her belt and club, and felt relief fill her as her hand wrapped around her knife. Sliding it into her sheath, she moved like a ghost through the grass. Heading up to the southernmost tip.
Where her prey awaited death by her hand.