---Greatbow---
---Khr’kowan’s perspective---
My feet fall lightly on the ground as I stalk through the undergrowth.
I look up at the [phasmid giraffe] grazing on the tree tops.
It’s body stands on ten legs and is covered in thick armour.
Its upper most limbs (a pair of simple graspers with no fingers) protrude from just below its head, atop its long neck.
It uses them to pull branches towards itself to gorge on their leaves.
It’s large… It would form the basis of a feast for Khawekh if we can kill this thing!
Taking care not to make any sudden movements, I lower my greatbow in front of myself by its string and hook it into the prongs on the ends of my lower appendages.
I lean my upper body backwards, flat against the top of my abdomen, lower my back legs, straighten my front legs and raise the bow upward to point at the animal’s centre of mass.
I take my javelin, tipped with my grandmother’s foot, and knock it to the bow string.
I hook one finger from each hand over the string, on either side of the projectile, and lock them.
I brace my upper body to begin ratcheting back the bowstring, just the way I did last winter to kill that strange beast up North.
I loose the bolt and it strikes the animal in the chest, punching straight through its armour and burying itself halfway up its shaft into the animal’s flesh.
The beast lets out a great, whistling cry and turns to run.
Curses!… I missed its heart!
My sisters spring from their hiding places and begin giving chase.
We cannot let it escape with my javelin in it!
We cannot let it die somewhere where the Vermin might find it, might feast on it and might steal yet another piece of precious thanatite from us!
“The quarry makes to flee, sisters! Do not let it!” I exhort as I stow my greatbow, withdraw my shortbow and give chase alongside them.
Bursting from the forest, we pursue the great creature through the open field.
My sisters hurl javelins into its side and pepper it with arrows as it runs, careful not to get too close as, even in its wounded state, a kick from one of its powerful legs could easily be deadly… or worse, crippling…
Most bounce off of its armour but a few manage to sink into gaps between the plates and, where they do, gouts of blue blood spring forth.
Those pieces that fall are the responsibility of the porters to retrieve.
Haorken has been relegated to that role since losing her back left foot on that Vermin displacement the other week.
A cursed shame!
She was our nation’s second best Hunter, after myself… Now, she just doesn’t have the speed for it anymore… Not to mention, with the injuries to her abdomen, she shall likely never be a broodwife!
If I catch that filthy Vermin girl, I will make sure to kill her slowly and painfully for what she did to my sister and best lieutenant!
The combination of bloodloss and the fact that animals just can’t run like people can causes our prey to tire.
It stops and wheels about as we surround it, cutting off its escape.
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It cries out in clear pain… My heart aches for my failure to kill it quickly.
After some time of it trying in vain to fight us off, the quarry collapses.
I’m forced to leap sideways to avoid its long neck coming down on top of me.
My sisters are clearly eager to begin the butchering but hold themselves back while I walk forward to its chest.
I grasp my javelin with both hands and brace the flats of my front four feet against its body so as not to unnecessarily pierce it.
I yank my weapon free and hold it aloft, slick with the creature’s blood.
I roar in triumph!
My sisters join their voices to mine.
They surge forward to begin dismembering the kill.
I don’t bother telling them to leave nothing behind.
Even if there weren’t the possibility of Vermin in the area, they would still know to not invite scavengers into our territory by leaving them any unearned meals!
I walk from the kill to Haorken, catching up at the head of the porters, her incomplete back left leg bound to the one beside it with silk.
Deferently, she hands me a stack of recovered arrows tipped with thanatite.
Not breaking decorum by showing pity for her condition, I take them and pull one free.
I bring the silk threads that bind the fletching to my nose and sniff.
“Korkh’s…” I proclaim before bringing the next one to my nose “Gharh’s…”
I continue to sort the arrows I’m offered for some time.
After the butchering is finished we will return all of the sorted thanatite to their owners to be counted.
Hopefully, nothing is missing and we don’t need to retrace the course to search.
---Grriv’s perspective---
“What the hell are those things!” I whisper to Viig from where we hide in the ferns on one side of a pass through the hills.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Not Monsters. Don’t matter.” responds the crouching, hooded, masked woman with the bloodmetal foot dagger hanging at the waist.
“How can you say that, Viig!” I ask, pointing at the beings walking down the pass “Those guys are people!… Look at them! They wear clothes! They carry tools! They’re people… but they’re neither Folk nor Monsters!”
The mysterious people walking down the pass stand on two feet like Folk but… weird!… The feet are long and flat and the legs don’t have enough joints! The strange beings are walking on ankle joints!… Gross!
They’re much taller than Folk… Closer to the height of Monsters!
The clothes they wear and tools they wield look considerably nicer than either Folk or Monster craftsmanship with allow!
Large pieces of metal (in colours I’ve never seen metal be) are visible all over them!
Several of them wear metal like clothes!
A tall pink skinned one with coppery hair has a strangely designed, sheathed knife on him with a blade as long as I am tall!
A woman with gold hair and wearing bronze on the legs and chest has a different one, two thirds that long again!
There isn’t a tail among them!
The two hands they have are five fingered like Folk hands but they aren’t clawed… except one of them who has claws but four hands with four fingers each!
The skin and hair I can see through the alien clothes are strange colours!
Not the green of Folk skin, not the black and red of Monster. Instead, pink, brown, blue skin and white, yellow, red, orange and black hair!
“We should go and introduce ourselves to them!” I say, making to stand.
A hand grasps me by the shoulder and pushes me back to crouched.
I turn to look at Viig.
She wears an angry expression.
“Grriv! Any moment now, the hunting Monsters that destroyed the worksite and killed Pod are going to be coming through this way!… If we announce ourselves to them we risk blowing the whole ambush!… For all we know, they’re friends with the Monsters! If they don’t attack us when the battle starts and we can find them afterwards, then we can talk to them and see what they’re about! Not before!… Hopefully, they hate the Monsters as much as we do!” she hisses.
I turn to look forlornly at the… Strangers… Yes… ‘Strangers’ is a good name for them!
Then, I tighten a hand around the spear I hold, made from a Monster arrow.
Viig’s right…
Now isn’t the time to be making friends!
We have an ambush to spring and a battle to fight.
More than 400 fighters lie hidden in the bushes for this ambush, most of them not of our village.
The loss of the hunting party will be a huge blow to the Monster city… Not to mention all the Folk we’ll be able to arm with all the bloodmetal we take!
Can’t blow this to talk to the Strangers…
There are only a few of them so, no matter the size they are or the quality of the tools they have, they probably won’t make much of a difference to this battle if they join in.
If they aren’t friends of the Monsters they’ll probably all be dead before we can help them!
Though… it has just occurred to me that they walk without fear… out in the open…
Do they not realise how vulnerable they are to attack?
Or… could it be…?
That thought is interrupted by the Monsters appearing at the far end of the gulch.
Guts swoop inside me at the sight.
They stop, looking at the Strangers.
They seem as uncertain about them as we are!
The Strangers seem excited… happy even.
Well some of them do!
Some of them look very uncomfortable at the sight!
A small one with long, straight, black hair with a silver streak in it raises a hand and shouts in a language I don’t know that sounds nothing like Monster speak “私たちはここにいます!… こっちに来て下さい!”