Page 82 of The Huntmaster

"Take your lackeys and get down to the southern gate," I ordered, my voice a dark, unyielding command as I turned my back on him. "Fight the Vakras. Prove you still have Oru-ka blood in your veins. If I see your face in the upper terraces before dawn, I will finish what I started."

I didn't wait to see if he obeyed. My shadow-beast was wounded, unable to carry my weight back up the vertical cliffs.

I dropped my blade into its sheath and sprang into the canopy. I became a ghost of muscle and claw, leaping from massive branch to massive branch, swinging across the thick vines of the high terrace with a frantic, desperate speed. The wind screamed in my ears, but the terrifying, suffocating silence in my chest was louder.

I had lost too much time. I had to get back to Lyra. I had to get back before the dark took her completely.

Chapter 53

Lyra

The suffocating silence in the hut didn't last.

The heavy, metallic scent of ozone and wet earth had barely settled into my lungs before the quiet of the upper terraces was violently shattered. It wasn't the distant, low roar of the war-horns from the canyon anymore. This was close. Right outside the hide door.

A sharp, piercing scream sliced through the dark, filled with a raw, agonising panic that made my blood run cold.

Mara. Or Sora.

I couldn't tell them apart through the sheer terror of the sound, but the instinctual drive to protect them overrode everything else. I scrambled out of the dark furs, my bare feet hitting the cold dirt floor. I didn't have armour, and I didn't have my pod tools, but my fingers wrapped tightly around the leather-bound hilt of Kaelen’s skymetal dagger. The dark, iridescent blade hummed faintly against my palm, a heavy, freezing weight.

I threw back the hide door and burst into the night air.

The upper terraces were absolute chaos. The unnatural quiet had been a lie. A faction of Vakra raiders—brutal, jagged-armoured scavengers—had somehow bypassed the lower defences entirely. They were pouring into the domestic circles, torching the communal structures with primitive incendiary fluid. The night was a blinding clash of white-gold Oru-ka markings and the sickly green torches of the raiders. Half the clan was engaged in a desperate, close-quarters melee, while the non-combatants, carrying what little they could, fled up toward the higher cavern sanctuaries in a panicked stampede.

Through the smoke, I spotted a familiar, starkly braided silhouette. Mara was pinned against a stone terrace wall, a massive Vakra raider pressing an iron pike toward her throat. She was fighting like a demon, but her leg was heavily bandaged from a previous skirmish, her movements severely hindered.

I didn't think. I lunged forward, coming up behind the raider, and drove Kaelen’s dagger upward, right beneath the junction of his armour and his neck. The skymetal blade slid in effortlessly, slicing through muscle and artery like hot oil. The Vakra let out a wet, gurgling gasp and collapsed to the dirt.

Mara staggered forward, her chest heaving as she stared at me in shock, her eyes wide. "Lyra..."

As she looked from the dead raider up to my hand, her gaze locked onto the weapon I held. For a fleeting second, a sharp flash of visceral resentment crossed her dark eyes as she stared at the iridescent blade. I didn't think much of it—given her bitter history with the raiders and the sheer, overwhelming madness of the attack happening around us, there was no time to analyse a look.

"Are you alright?!" I yelled over the din of battle, grabbing her shoulder to steady her. "Where is everyone else? Where is Sora?"

"The south line—" Mara choked out, coughing against the thick black smoke. She gripped my forearm, her fingers digging in with a terrifying, bruising intensity. "Ly-ra, you shouldn't be out here. The Vakras... I saw a detachment of them heading toward the lower training circles. Toward the holding pens. They are going for the captured Vakra fledgling, Sky. Vengeance burns in their eyes, Ly-ra. They are going to cut him down for being a prisoner."

A cold spike of adrenaline slammed into my heart. Sky.

The youngling was still confined in his cage, entirely helpless. If the Vakras reached him first, they would slaughter him.

"Get to the upper caverns, Mara! Go!" I screamed, turning on my heel before she could even answer.

I sprinted down the terraced steps, my heart hammering against my ribs, the absolute emptiness of the soul-bind inside my chest aching like an open wound. I couldn't feel Kaelen. The dampening field was still heavy, cutting me off from his strength, leaving me entirely isolated in the dark.

By the time I reached the secure holding area, the air smelled thick with burning thatch. The main gates to the enclosure had been ripped open, but the area was eerily abandoned. I sprinted toward the iron-reinforced wooden cage at the back of the clearing.

Sky was there. He was completely alone, huddled in the far corner of the dark cage, his large frame trembling violently as the orange glow of the fires danced across his face. Though he was still technically a child by his species' standards, he was an alien; he stood only slightly shorter than me, his lanky, youthful limbs pressed tightly against the wooden slats.

"Sky!" I gasped and rushed to the bars.

He looked up, his large, dark eyes reflecting the flames, a desperate whimpering sound escaping his throat.

The heavy iron lock holding the cage shut was rusted but solid. I didn't have a key. In my frantic haste, I reversed my grip to strike the mechanism, but my hand slipped down the leather wrapping. The razor-sharp edge of the sky-metal blade bit deeply into the meat of my palm as I slammed the hilt down onto the locking mechanism.

The superior sky-metal shattered the primitive iron on the second blow. The lock cracked open and fell into the dirt. I could see the dark blood welling up and coating my fingers, but strangely, I felt absolutely no pain. The sheer, terrifying rush of adrenaline completely numbed it out.

"Come on," I whispered, throwing the heavy wooden door open and reaching my uninjured hand out to him. "We have to get you to safety. It's not safe here."