Page 28 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin
Here they come.
Then it was on me. Faster than I thought possible I charged forward. Shoulder to shoulder, I ran alongside the snorting beast, our grunts and heavy footfalls in sync. I held my breath, rib cage fully expanded, and felt the hot gusts of air blowing out its nostrils against my skin. Then I tightened my grasp on the spear I held overhead and lunged. A fierce bellow tore from deep in my chest as the spear arced through the sky. The mantu lowed and stumbled as the sharp point struck its target. A blow to the mantu’s shoulder forced the beast into the sharp curve of the boulder-strewn path we’d toiled all night to build.
As the anchor of the crew, I would close the deal and ensure the shaggy-coated mantu fell into our trap.
The snorting and pounding of hooves abruptly ended. Straight off the cliff’s edge, the mantu soared before it plummeted to the grassy plateau below, its neck at an odd angle. The loss of life left my heart skipping a beat in sadness.
I peered over the steep drop as D’Rasma shouted, “It’s a good clean death. C’mon down.”
D’irk ran up beside me, his chest heaving. “Worked like a charm, Makir. Couldn’t have got it done without you. Those tusks are yours.” He tapped his fist twice on his opposite shoulder.
The show of respect made it difficult to swallow. A sense of pride filled me, not unlike when my brother and I had come home with a bundle of bush-tailed monties. “I will mount them in a place of honor.” Still flushed with adrenaline, we clambered down the boulder-strewn path to the plateau.
Crouched before the mantu, the suction pad of my tail, still hidden among the fluff, touched the space between its lifeless eyes. “From the soil to the land, thank you for what you give to nourish us.”
D’irk bent one knee to the trampled grass and passed his sharp blade through the mantu’s thick, shaggy coat. The spilled blood from its neck soaked the dry soil below, a tribute to its time on this planet.
The somber moment was yanked away. Below me, the plateau vibrated, the sensation rolled through my knees, and four heads cranked toward the source. A herd of mantu stampeded directly toward us. Their panicked lows and snorts neared. And taking up the rear, chasing them, a creature the size of a tower wreaked havoc.
My shoulders tensed. The air tasted metallic with spilled blood. Every muscle coiled, strung tight as a bow. “W-what the blant is that?”
“Seek cover!” D’Rasma yelled over the din, already in motion. He grabbed my jumpsuit.
“C’mon.” D’Argon pointed to the base of the cliff among the boulders and stones.
A long, flat space emerged as we raced closer. On our stomachs, we wiggled through a narrow cleft. All too soon, sandwiched between three Boola, it became an unwelcome cage to watch the gruesome scene play out in front of us. My tether tightened, prickly and itchy. It twanged, like humming feedback along a taut wire. Geo’s concerned face flashed through my mind.
D’irk gawked. “Blant me, look’a the mouth on her.”
My heart raced, but crammed side by side on our stomachs, we were relatively safe. Just above our heads, a stone shelf extended over us like a roof.
D’Argon’s teeth clicked in time with his bouncing foot. “It looks like some type’a mutated worm.”
“Goddess, no.” I trembled as an enormous, pale, round-mouthed, eyeless creature tore through the herd of mantu. Gore dripped from rows of pointed teeth, circling the black hole of its gaping maw and extending down its throat. Mantu were flung from the creature’s mouth, their death screams haunting the herd left behind. Broken bodies littered the grassy plateau. The steam from their snorting noses turned into white clouds in the cold air, and the moonlight cast an eerie glow across the macabre scene.
The bloodshed, too gruesome to process at the moment, would haunt me later while I lay safe in bed. I scanned the carnage as if I were watching it on a screen, not like the all-too-close, terrifying reality I could almost reach out and touch.
Time ticked by while I lay frozen in fear. So much gore. I flashed back to the worst night of my life. Tremors racked my body. “Reinik. No. Stop.” I pleaded. “You’re hurting me! Bonic, h-help…” My vision grew black, my breaths so shallow it felt like I was suffocating.
My hand clamped so tightly onto the rocky ledge in front of me that my skin broke and bled. My vision tunneled as the giant worm-like monster gulped down one more mantu, then sank back into the earth, purple with blood, a geyser of soil rising in its wake.
“I guess it’s had its fill,” I distantly heard D’irk mumble.
“Makir.” D’irk’s hand rested on my shoulder. “Take a deep breath now.” He spoke to me in a low voice. “You’re calm and safe. Breathe now. Listen to my voice… Good. Focus on my voice. Keep breathing.”
The two brothers chatted in the background, faint at first, then louder. “She’s as pale as the moon. My guess is it’s nocturnal,” D’Rasma whispered. “I think we should wait ’til morning before we move.”
My mind finally stopped its freefall. I drew in a long breath of air. Hunting I enjoyed, but single-minded destruction was something else altogether.
D’irk’s hand remained a solid presence on my shoulder. “You okay now?”
I nodded and drank from the water container he offered. “Th-thanks. How did you know what would help?” This wasn’t my first panic attack, but my brother was the only one who had successfully brought me out of one.
“T’isn’t somethin’ new to me….” He stared into the distance.
Wedged between a stone slab above me and one below, the hiding place was eerily similar to the graves on Lorne rather than a haven. How would I spend the rest of the dark hours in this tiny shelter?
When I stared into the moonlight, its glow electrified the tether’s vibration and pull. I felt hot all over, my face flushed, and it had nothing to do with the lingering effects of the panic attack or the warm bodies on either side of me.
