1.5 - Destiny Unchosen (6 page)

Just in case she hadn’t had enough to worry about.

Temi followed Jakatra into the brush, her hand clenched tightly about her sword.

Temi waited, knees bent slightly, weight resting on the balls of her feet. Just like getting ready to return a serve. Except the thing racing toward her at a hundred miles an hour wasn’t a tennis ball; it was a shaggy brown animal with fangs like daggers.

It pounded through the shadows on four legs, crushing foliage with heavy paws, ignoring branches that scraped at its fur, staring at her with hungry yellow eyes. Every instinct told Temi to run, but Jakatra had warned her not to turn her back, that it would sense her fear and pounce. As if it wasn’t going to pounce now. It was covering the ground as fast as a car on the highway, its maw opening wide in anticipation.

Twenty meters. Ten meters.

Sweat dampened her palms. An image of the weapon being torn from her grip popped into her mind, but there was no time to wipe her hands. She squeezed down on the hilt.

Five meters. Temi held her stance, waiting until it was too late for the creature to alter its course.

It leapt into the air, paws stretching toward her. A throaty snarl burst from its throat. Claws like switchblades sprang from its digits.

“Now,” Jakatra ordered from a nearby tree.

Temi was already springing to the side, whipping the sword at the creature’s shoulder as she did so. The throat would have been an ideal target, but its limbs were longer than hers, and she couldn’t hit it as she sprang away. But a wound was a start. Setting up the point so she could take advantage.

Her blade sliced into the flesh of its shoulder, as she had hoped, but the blow didn’t keep it from twisting in the air and swinging at her with one of those massive paws. Temi jumped back again, jerking her head to avoid those slashing claws. She landed on sure feet, glad she had studied the ground and knew there was nothing behind her that would entangle her. She backed up further, to a tree the thickness of an aged redwood.

The creature spun toward her. Dark purple blood spattered the rich green leaves of the dense undergrowth, but the beast showed no sign of pain. It bunched its muscles, preparing to spring again. Temi thought about sidestepping away from the tree, so she could leap away in any direction, but it could be a useful shield too. Or... she glanced up, spotting a branch eight or nine feet high. Maybe she could—

The creature attacked again before she had time to finalize her battle plan. This time, it roared and charged her without jumping, barreling straight at her like a train. She almost let its speed and ferocity set her back on her heels, but she would be defending from a position of desperation if she allowed that. Instead, she kept her weight even until it was almost upon her, then she jumped into the air, catching the branch with her free hand and curling her legs up at the same time as she slammed down with the sword, aiming for its skull this time.

The creature’s shoulder bumped her foot as it passed, jostling her aim. Her weapon slashed through its ear and sheared fur and flesh off its head, but it wasn’t the killing blow she had hoped for.

Disgusted, Temi decided she needed to attack from a solid spot on the ground instead of flailing at it while airborne. Then she could push off the earth and throw her hips, her entire body, behind her swings. The snarling beast spun about, not yet slowed by its injuries. It didn’t even seem to notice them.

She dropped from the branch to face it. Instead of charging at her again, it circled her and the tree, keeping its body low as it sought the right moment.

“Go ahead,” Temi whispered. “I’m staying put this time.”

The animal lunged toward her, and she shifted her weight, ready to throw everything into a swing at it, but the lunge was only a feint. Her furry opponent was testing her. She took a couple of steps toward it, waving the sword, thinking
she
might get a chance to charge. Or at least hoping the weapon’s silvery glow might unsettle the animal. Faster than she ever could be, the creature didn’t let her get close. Not on her terms anyway.

Temi stepped on a branch and the wood snapped. A small animal sprang out of a nearby bush, startling her. For an instant, her attention was drawn away from the creature. It chose that moment to charge again, leaping toward her head—toward her
neck
.

Temi wanted to spring away from those raking claws, but she made herself sink low and stand her ground. She ducked under the outstretched paws, then came up from beneath them, pushing off the ground and throwing her blade at the creature’s neck. The sword sliced through flesh, muscle, and bone, like a knife cutting warm butter, but she was buried beneath hundreds of pounds of animal before she could tell if she’d struck a killing blow.

No claws or fangs cut into her, but fear boiled into her throat as she was borne to the ground. The creature thrashed, and she didn’t know if it was dying or attacking her. She squirmed, trying to scramble out, to escape, but the damned thing had to weigh a half ton. Her knee screamed as she twisted it, and it wasn’t even the one that usually bothered her. Gasping, she finally clawed her way to freedom. She crawled, trying to put distance between herself and the animal and finally found her feet. Somehow, she had maintained a grip on the sword. Her hands were covered in blood, and she gulped, but the animal wasn’t moving. It was a good thing. If it had been alive, it could have smothered her to death by simply not letting her escape. Forget the claws and teeth.

“Next time, get in, make the killing blow, and then get out before it falls on you,” came Jakatra’s comment from a few feet away. He was leaning against the tree on the other side of the dead animal.

Temi bit back a comment that would have been along the lines of, screw you. She brushed dirt off her clothes, to give herself a moment to calm down—though the action was pointless when those clothes were already stained with blood—then managed a civil, “Yes, I figured out that my strategy was flawed as I was being smashed into the ground.”

Jakatra gazed blandly at her. “What will you do differently next time?”

No congratulations on killing it, however messily. No
good job
for not losing her sword under a half-ton dead monster. No promise that she had passed her first test. Temi sighed.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I thought I had to get in close to really land a good whack, but that probably wasn’t the smartest thing, after all. If I hadn’t killed it, I would have been dead.”

“Yes.”

Such charming bluntness.

“I wasn’t doing much damage by jumping in and out, trying to hurt it without getting inside its range,” Temi said. “I was afraid if I kept messing around like that, I’d get unlucky and it would catch me. And the wounds I’d inflicted weren’t doing much to slow it down. Losing its ear didn’t faze it at all.”

“Eventually, you would have worn it down with that strategy.”

“So that’s what I should have done?” Temi imagined tripping over a root during a prolonged battle.

“With practice, you will find a style that suits you for hunting big game. That is why we are here.”

Standing behind a ridge and shooting big game with a grenade launcher sounded like a style that would suit her. The elves claimed that even powerful Earth-based weapons wouldn’t work on the monsters, but she wasn’t sure she believed that. Simon didn’t. The last time she had seen him, he had been shopping online for materials to make explosives, proclaiming that all of the
components
were perfectly legal to own.

“The attrition style will likely be a necessity with the
jibtab
. Vital targets may not be obvious, and what appears to be a neck might not carry blood.”

Yes, the creature they had faced before hadn’t even seemed to
have
blood. Simon and Delia had speculated that it was more robot than being, though even that hadn’t been a very accurate classification. “Burying it under a million tons of rock and water worked.”

“In that instance, yes, but you will not always be able to choose the place where you face a
jibtab
. And it, too, may be different each time, made from different raw materials, depending on the whims of its creator.”

The way he spoke authoritatively about creators and materials made Temi wonder if he and Eleriss had been telling the truth, that they didn’t know who was making the monsters.

“With that sword, you’ll cut through muscle and bone much more easily than you would with mine.” Jakatra waved the blade he had brought with him, the same one he had been training with all week. “The attrition style should prove effective.”

An eerie sound drifted through the forest, something between a groan and a howl. It made the hair on Temi’s arms stand up.

“Next test?” she asked.

How many battles would Jakatra expect from her that night? With drying sweat and blood caking her, all she wanted was a shower and a bed. She already felt as if she had played an entire match, and full darkness had yet to fall, something that would add a degree of difficulty to her encounters, glowing sword or not.

“The
saru
,” Jakatra said, his pointed ears tilted toward the noise. “Odd.”

“How so?” Other than the fact that those howls made her want to crawl into a bank vault and lock herself in.

“They compete for territory with the
uruv-neshi
.” He pointed at the dead animal. “They’ll fight if they encounter one another, so it’s unusual to find them within ten miles of each other.”

Another howl stirred Temi’s arm hairs. “Maybe this one knows this territory is newly available.”

“Perhaps.” Jakatra didn’t sound convinced. She tried not to find that disturbing. “Regardless, a
saru
would be a good test. They are much faster than the
uruv-neshi
.”

Temi still didn’t know how she had fared on the
last
test. Was killing the beast and surviving enough for a satisfactory rating? Or would she lose points for being smashed under a corpse?

A second howl joined the first, this one an even higher and creepier pitch. Temi wanted to remain calm. She had fought one creature and won, so she could handle this new challenge—she knew she could—but she could feel her heart racing in her chest, hammering against her ribs. Aside from the howls, the forest was so still that she could hear her own breathing, short, quick inhalations. Damn, she wasn’t calm at all.

“Two?” Jakatra frowned. “Even odder. They are not pack animals.”

“Are they drawn to the smell of blood? Maybe we should move away from the corpse.”

“They prefer that their food still be alive when they dine.” Jakatra did walk away from the first dead animal, though, heading toward the open area where they had waited for their first attacker. “Come. I will assist you in this next battle.”

Well, that was something anyway.

Temi jogged after him, sticking close. The howls were continuing. And they were growing closer. “Do you want to use this sword?” she asked, having the sense that his wasn’t magical or specially powered or whatever it was that made hers glow.

He gazed back at her silvery blade. “No, it is yours to master.”

More howls joined the first, and his head spun toward the noise. “More?” he whispered, a note of concern in his voice for the first time.

The cries were blending together now to Temi’s ears, and she couldn’t tell if there were two creatures or ten. “How many?”

Jakatra stopped walking. “There are at least four.”

“Four animals as big and strong as what I just fought?”

“Not quite as big, but stronger and faster. And they never travel in packs. Or even pairs. The female kills the male after they mate if he doesn’t leave her side soon enough.”

“They sound cozy.”

Jakatra didn’t answer; he was looking in all directions, analyzing the forest, his eyes glowing faintly in the deepening gloom. Searching for somewhere to hide? To run to?

“Jakatra?” she whispered during a lull in the howls. The woods were utterly silent around them. “Did you bring any of your superior protections that drive them away? For backup?”

His expression changed little, but she got a sense of bleakness from them. “If I had, they wouldn’t have come.”

“Do you have a way to communicate with Eleriss?”

“No.”

The howls grew shorter, more excited, reminding Temi of coyotes on the heels of their prey. Except these creatures sounded much bigger than coyotes.

“They’re here.” Jakatra pointed into the trees.

It was too dark now for Temi to pick out anything—the silvery illumination from her sword didn’t reach that far—but she trusted he could see with his glowing eyes.

“Come, up that big tree. Can you climb it? There are too many for us to fight.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

Temi raced after him to a tree with a six-foot-diameter trunk. It looked sturdy enough to withstand even the most determined predator. So long as none of them came armed with chainsaws.

The cracked plates of bark reminded Temi of alligator junipers back home, but the trunk rose straight up without any branches for the first twenty feet. Not fazed, Jakatra charged up the tree as if he were Usain Bolt sprinting down a track. Temi gawked. There was no way she could duplicate that feat; he hadn’t even put his sword away for the climb.

More animals were gathering in the shadows, spreading out to surround them. Jakatra must be mistaken. They were definitely hunting with pack instincts. And they were getting closer.

She stuck her sword into the scabbard hanging across her back and slid her hands over the rough bark. When the blade disappeared into its home, its glow quenched, the darkness left behind filled her with as much fear as those howls did. She reached up, gripping the trunk and jumped, trying to dig her boots into the bark. They skidded down several inches. Panic rose in her breast, along with the realization that she might not be able to do this, that she hadn’t climbed enough trees as a child.

A high-pitched yowl erupted from the brush not twenty feet away. Sheer adrenaline changed Temi’s mind—she
could
do this—and propelled her upward. Her shoes skidded again. She cursed, hugged the tree for all she was worth, and kicked them off. She made much better progress in socks. But was it enough? Heavy paws trod on the undergrowth around the trunk. Snarls and slavering sounds filled her ears.