4

ARAK’JUR

Ipek’a Hunting Grounds

Sinari Land

An ethereal nimbus surrounded him as he called upon the spirit of anahret.

Anahret was small; a child or a woman might mistake one for a common lizard. The eyes were the difference. Instead of the normal iris-and-pupil of a common reptile, anahret’s sockets were filled with pools of black mist. A trail of vapor marked their movements, thin wisps when they turned to track their prey. Easy to miss, and costly. The bite of anahret was death.

He knew them well, understood what it was to wear their skin. A gift earned by slaying one of their kind, beseeching the spirit that answered when it fell. A wave of cold washed over him as the spirit granted its power, and his heart stopped, his lungs slowing until he no longer felt the need to breathe. It was in this state anahret lay in wait beside feeding grounds and watering holes. The creatures could remain motionless for days, until prey approached. He needed that patience now, so close to the end of his hunt.

Nearby, a copse of bushes rustled as a pair of birds took flight. Otherwise the forest was quiet, breeze rattling branches, shaking loose a bough of leaves from a nearby elm. Arak’Jur lay beside a boulder, covered in dirt and fallen leaves, with a vantage to spot the approaches to the stream winding through the wood below.

Any moment, she would call again.

A trumpet blast thundered through the wood, the bone-chilling screech of a female ipek’a. This female was a magnificent creature, nine feet tall, long crimson feathers bristling off her back like a rack of deadly spikes. One could tell how recently an ipek’a had made a kill by the hue of its plumage. Whelps and males, smaller and less aggressive than the females, were white, or a light shade of pink. The females were darker and richer. This one was a deep, lustrous red. The color of fresh blood.

He couldn’t see her as she sounded, but he’d been shadowing her pack for three days. They’d stopped to weather the storm on the horizon, black thunderclouds sweeping in with the evening breeze. Smart creatures. The cave they’d found could as easily have been chosen by men for its defensible position and easy access to fresh water. This storm was precisely what he needed. On the move, the pack would never have relaxed their guard around water. For his plan to work he needed one of their young to venture out alone.

At the base of the incline, a brown elk stepped from behind a bush, keeping its head down as it strode toward the running waters of the stream. The ipek’a’s screech had passed, and the elk must have thought it safe to sate its thirst. So near a pack of ipek’a the creature’s instinct served him poorly. The elk reached the stream and lowered its head, lapping at the cool fresh water.

A flurry of crimson streaked into view, and the elk scarce had time to cry out before a scything claw took it in the throat. Blood and fur spattered across dried leaves as the elk’s cry became a gurgling noise, halfway between a scream and a whimper. And there she was. Ipek’a. She arched her long neck into the air as the roots of her feathers darkened, as if each feather drank a sip of blood from the flesh of her kill. She let out a triumphant snort, leaning down to extract a bloody clump of flesh in her powerful jaws. The ipek’a had inverted joints and enormous musculature in their hind legs. They did not run at their prey. They leapt. No telltale vibrations in the ground or crashing through underbrush. When an ipek’a committed to a kill, it was silent, swift death from above.

Sated by the first taste of her prey, the female clamped her razor-sharp teeth around the elk’s neck, bobbing up and down as she dragged her prey back toward their cave.

Arak’Jur lay alongside the boulder as the storm hit, covering the area with rain and thunder through the night.

As guardian, he had been given a sacred charge. He was a hunter, yes, but also a protector. Long ago, his ancestors had hidden behind walls of stone, living on barren lands atop steep mountain slopes in fear of great beasts like ipek’a and anahret. His people had rich lands now. The legacy of the first men who dared to venture into the wild, to listen to the will of the spirits they found there. The first tribesmen. Now his people thrived; the tribe’s shaman saw glimpses of things-to-come, revealing great beasts near enough to threaten their people, and he hunted them. Such was the great pact of the tribes. Spirits of things-to-come, to guide the shamans and whisper their will to their people; spirits of the land, to empower the women in their secret councils; and spirits of beasts, whose gifts Arak’Jur wielded to keep his people safe.

The morning brought no respite from the storm. But it did provide an opening.

Two of the whelpling ipek’a emerged from the cave, feathers white and dripping from the rain beaded across their long necks and thin bodies. They made their way down the slope toward the running stream below. It was difficult to see them as the lethal predators they were, wobbling and swaying, uneasy on their child’s legs. One of the males kept a lazy eye on the younglings, hovering near the cave entrance, but the massive female was nowhere in sight. Such was the difficulty of being a protector. All creatures, great and small, had to sleep, in time.

After waiting so long, the last moments stretched on and on. One more step. Another. And there. They were too far to turn back. Still the young ipek’a marched on, oblivious to their fates. They arrived at the stream, lowering their heads to drink.

He struck.

He asked aid from the spirits of una’re and mareh’et, and a pale nimbus surrounded him in the form of both spirits as they blessed him with their gifts. Crackling energy surged across his hands, blessed by the lightning-empowered strikes of the Great Bear’s claws. He leapt with otherworldly speed and agility, with the grace of the Great Cat.

He soared down the slope, landing with adroit precision between the two beasts as they drank from the stream. The larger of the two ipek’a turned toward him, and he landed a crushing blow to its throat, wrapping his fist around its windpipe, electrical energy crackling and surging into his prey. The creature’s flesh hissed and popped, black streaks scoring beneath its feathers. Surprise had only just reached its eyes when it died, irises rolling back up into its skull as its legs buckled and slumped to the ground.

He was already on the smaller one, leaping into the air and kicking down with the force of the Great Bear. The creature began a screech, a juvenile imitation of its mother’s cry, fraying into a desperate howl as its leg snapped.

Satisfied, he darted beside a nearby elm and invoked the spirit of the juna’ren. An image of the tiny amphibian shimmered around him, and his naked skin and hide leggings blended into the browns and bark patterns of the tree at his back. It was not a perfect camouflage, but it would serve.

The younger and smaller ipek’a whelpling lay whining on the ground beside its dead sibling. It began and choked off screeches in a pitiful rhythm, interrupted by pain as it put weight on its shattered leg. The rest of the pack came flooding out of the cave in a panicked rush of feathers and cries of alarm, led by the alpha female. There was no force in nature stronger than a mother hearing the cry of a child. Arak’Jur stood as still as he could manage without the blessing of anahret—too soon to ask for its blessing again—waiting as his heart pounded. The keen senses of an alpha female ipek’a should never be fooled by a ruse as simple as the gift of the juna’ren. But all her attention was focused on the wounded infant, on doing everything in her power to protect it, to heal it, to make the world right again.

She rushed to its side, leaning down to nudge her child with her narrow snout. In a moment, her nurturing instinct would be replaced with fury, an insatiable desire for revenge. But he had this one, short window to act. And he took it.

A nimbus of the valak’ar surrounded him, the image of a serpent uncoiled to its full height. Only a single valak’ar had ever come near Sinari land, thank the spirits. The wraith-snake was a ghost given form, able to pass through stone, clay, or flesh to deliver its deadly bite straight to the heart of its victims. Its wispy hide was proof against any weapon, save at the moment it struck for the kill. The valak’ar that came to the Sinari village had killed Arak’Mul, the former guardian, and countless others. In slaying it, Arak’Jur had become guardian, chosen by the spirits to take the Arak name, to hunt the beasts in the shamans’ visions for the protection of his tribe.

Wrapped in the power of the terrible serpent, his fist passed through the female’s coat of feathers, through her thick outer hide, through the bone and sinew that encased her powerful heart. With a touch, he delivered a stroke of blight directly into her blood, and she died.

Her proud red feathers went black, sick and warped. Her flesh hissed as it stretched taut, snapping away from her muscles, leaking green mucous into steaming pools in the dirt. The other ipek’a reacted in force, swarming toward him in a rage, but he’d already sunk to his knees, rain streaming over his uplifted face in muddy streaks. His eyes had gone white.

A calming force settled over the creatures. Instinctively they recognized what had happened here. They were in the presence of the spirits. And even the most savage beast in nature knew to respect that power.

YOU KILLED HER.

The voice was assertive, proud, shocked.

I did, he thought back to it.

SHE WAS STRONG.

Yes, he agreed.

AND YET YOU BESTED HER. A MAN.

He thought nothing in return, letting silence fill his mind. Reverence settled between them, as though he was watched by unseen eyes, weighed against some standard he could not comprehend.

YOU HAVE STRENGTH, the voice announced, a grudging admission.

Thank you, Great Spirit, he thought back to it, trying to hide his relief. Even here, after stalking and slaying the beast, acceptance was no sure thing. The spirits of each great beast mirrored and perfected the traits of their scions; mareh’et was capricious, anahret stoic and reserved. He could not be sure how best to gain their favor until he faced them, and came to understand what it meant to wear their skins.

IT IS GOOD FOR MEN TO GAIN STRENGTH. THE GODDESS WILL HAVE NEED OF YOU, IN TIMES TO COME. ARE YOU HER CHOSEN? WILL YOU BE HER VOICE?

Always they asked this. He didn’t know what it meant.

No, Great Spirit, he replied. I seek only your gift, the gift of ipek’a, to protect my people.

A SIMPLE REQUEST.

He waited, saying nothing as the spirit contemplated.

The moments stretched on until the voice thundered inside his head once more.

GRANTED.

He felt a wave of energy rush through him, from the top of his head through his chest, to the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet. For a moment, he saw through the alpha female’s eyes, and felt for himself what it was to be ipek’a. He raced across the grassy plains, leaping into the sky, crashing with thunderous force on unsuspecting prey. He was unstoppable, a blizzard of raking claws. He was a sower of terror, the leader of his pack, a hunter without peer. He preened and relished the envy of the other hunters, displaying the blood-red feathers that signified his prowess and deadly skill. He was ipek’a, proudest of all hunters, and he bore the mark of a thousand kills in his flesh, displayed for all to see.

In time, the visions faded.

Thank you, Great Spirit, he thought with reverence.

REMEMBER HER.

The voice echoed through his head, and his senses slid back into his body.

He rose to his feet. Bite marks and exposed bone covered the bodies of the whelps, sign of carrion-eaters come for an easy meal, though the sickly corpse of the matron had not been touched. The rest of the pack was gone.

He looked up to a cloudy blue sky, vestiges of the storm still hanging in the breeze.

“I will,” he said softly.

Past time to head home. He began to walk.