DAYSTARS

Daystars burned orange above the tundra and the mountains of storm, and showed us our position. Five days we had tracked across the snowfield. Five warmthless days and nights on the waste, but the beast was close now. I splayed my many-jointed fingers upon the fresh snow and focused my uppermost eye, and I could smell it.

Aabar stopped beside me, knelt down to my level.

“How far, inspector?” she asked, and I could smell her impatience. Vortixx despise the cold and the stillness it brings. She was ready to end the hunt.

I sank my fingers further into the snowcover, twitched them against the stone beneath. Vaguely the shape of the terrain ahead revealed itself to me, the sloping up into hard rock and the ravine opening there, less than thirty bio ahead. I relayed as much.

“The beast wants to escape through the pass,” the Vortixx hissed.

“The poison jungles of Tren Krom are beyond,” Japra added as she approached, rubbing her arms to warm them. “Does it know that, you think?”

Aabar shrugged: “It’s only a Rahi.”

“A Rahi that is immune to all poisons, toxins, and paralytics, according to our employers. Maybe the jungle is its home, and it’s returning there. Or maybe it’s just smarter than we thought?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Aabar stood to her full height again, stretched her claws. “We’ll catch up by day’s end, and our commission is to kill anyways, not paralyze-and-capture.”

“I know, and it’s a shame. I’ve been itching to use the Makika-venom concentrate.”

“Next time.”

I spoke: “It is unlike the Makuta, to seek death for such a specimen.” 

“Why do you say that?” Japra asked.

“They usually like their targets living, for their strange purposes.”

“We are paid to do, not to ask why,” Aabar said. “If the Makuta want this thing dead, that’s that.”

I nodded. She beckoned to the Olmaran hunters down the slope, made signs for them to break camp. 

“It’s strange, I agree,” Japra said to me quietly. “We’ve hunted for the Makuta before, but this is different. The emissary called it something . . . the last living Keeta-beast, I think. I’ve never heard of it.”

“The scent is unique, yes, and the tracks . . .” I wove my fingers together in thought. “Maybe you should’ve learned to power-feed off of confusion, instead of the emotion of fear.”

Japra laughed. “Many times, my friend, they are the same thing.”

*  *  *  *  *  *

I stumble, and my traitor body leaves a trail to darken the white snow behind me. It is dark beneath the night and the driving stormwind, and I am slow because my legs are bent wrong now. Fortunately, it is also very cold, so the pain is dull. 

Above and ahead, I can still see the last few daystars burning, though the air is full of ice. I set my course by them, away, away . . .

My lefthand fingers are crushed to ribbons and useless, but my right . . . My right can still feel. I spread my many-jointed fingers across the ground before me, to smell out the return path, back down the mountain. The ravine is far away now, back up the snowfield, and the wrecked bodies of my companions are frosting over. 

There was nothing to be done. I had to leave them. It was my mistake. I should have seen it. So confident were we, so sure of ourselves, and then . . . and then . . .

I am the last, and I must make it back, tell them that our hunt was successful, in spite of everything. That we brought down our quarry. Someone must know.

I can still smell the beast, somehow, even though I know it is dead. Its scent clings close, like a memory. 

I hope that it will fade soon, and maybe, someday, I too can forget.

*  *  *  *  *  *

It was midday by the time we reached the ravine, but the tracks were still clear. Even Aabar could make them out. Large, cut deep in the snow. Further in, it was dark, and there was fog pouring off the mountainside above.

The three Olmaran hunters readied their equipment, affixed spearheads, loaded the Sai-Lutu and the tangle-lines. Japra performed the breath-action to calm her nerves, and readied herself to feed upon the beast’s primitive fear. Aabar tested the charge on her electrified claws, then pulled the party’s Hau from her pack, handing it to me.

“Just a precaution,” she said when I grimaced. “The fog is heavy in there, so you will have to sight the way for us.”

I sighed and placed the mask on my face, felt the surge of its protective energy. I squinted my third eye through the narrow upper vent. It was constricting, but not as bad as other masks.

“When we reach the target,” Aabar continued, “sign the beast’s position, and then fall back.”

“That’s right. Leave the heroics to us,” Japra said winkingly. “Can’t have you claiming a greater share.”

I itched at the mask.

Forward we went at a steady, silent pace. The Olmaran hunters crept along the walls of the ravine, while Japra and Aabar followed just behind me, on either side. I crouched, and my fingers crawled across the stone, drinking the vibrations of earth and air, creeping my perceptions forward through the gloom.

Minutes passed. We moved ahead. The air was dull with fog. My breath steamed through the side-vents of the Hau. Slowly, carefully.

All at once, there it was. I stopped and gave the sign, pointed into the mist. Five bio ahead it crouched behind a fallen boulder. The smell was very strong, and I could almost make out the beast’s shape in my head: A long, lithe body, claws clinking on the stones. Two forelegs . . . and the rearlegs—

Japra stepped in front of me, gesturing for me to fall back. Aabar was already advancing, and the Olmaran hunters flitted past on their spider-like legs, spears raised. I retreated a few steps further. The rearlegs . . . the rearlegs were not legs, I realized.

Ahead, the air buzzed with electricity, and there was a report from one of the Sai-Lutu. A sudden roar, cut short, and I could hear Japra laughing. The smell of the beast . . . the smell was very strong here. Was it over? I stepped forward through the fog, saw the shape of the downed Rahi dimly. One Olmaran stood over it, and Japra was kneeling by its side.

The rearlegs were not legs, I saw. They were treads . . . Two treads, with two clawed forelegs. A great mouth on a long extendable neck.

“All safe, Lhanen,” came the voice of Aabar, a few bio away. She was cleaning her claws. “Just a Muaka, it seems. Biggest I’ve ever seen, but no match for us. This might be the easiest job we’ve taken.”

A Muaka. I scratched my chin. It was strange . . . I had tracked the beast all this way, through snow and sleet. There hadn’t been any tread-marks. I had thought that the beast I was tracking was a biped—

I turned too late. A vast shape loomed through the fog behind me, square shoulders topped by a huge domed head. A single red eye glared with grim intelligence . . . and rage. 

A shattering blow struck my Hau shield and broke it, and I was flying backward into the cliff—

*  *  *  *  *  *

The fog had subsided when I awoke, and a layer of frost had settled on the bodies of my companions, and on me. The ravine was silent except for the low moaning of wind above. 

I examined their broken bodies for signs of life. There was none. I wept over them, though there were no tears in me and every step and movement was pain. I could not bring myself to touch the body of the beast, however. It was too terrible, lying huge and still. I could not see what injury had finally brought it down.

It was not really a beast—not like we had been told. In the moment when it attacked, I remembered how it had looked at me. There was something in its gaze, some strange form of understanding.

That eye was deep with knowledge, not like the eyes of a simple Rahi. There was anger, and the desperation to survive, but there was also judgment . . . and calculation.

It was an old creature, maybe even wise.

*  *  *  *  *  *

My leg twists wrong again, and pain breaks through the numbness, up into my body, but I keep on, through the wind and dark. I won’t give up. Not yet.

I can still smell the beast. It annoys me. I shake my head, wring out my frostbitten fingers, wishing to leave it all behind. The night is complete now, and the wind is howling steadily over me. I must find shelter soon, and in the morning I will make it across the rest of the snowfield and down the slopes beyond. I am tired, but I can make it. I am sure.

One last daystar burns through the driving snow ahead, and I am walking toward it, fixing my course on it. I am sure that it will lead me home.

*  *  *  *  *  *

I stood before the great corpse and knew that I should feel anger, or something, at least, but all I felt was loss.

The creature had known that we were tracking it . . . that I was tracking it. It had known . . . me, somehow. I saw the bruise-marks on the armor of the Muaka. The creature must have taken down the Rahi-tiger and carried it ahead, set a trap for us. It had been cunning. No wonder the Makuta sought it, even for its death.

“F-forgive me,” I stammered in the cold air. “Forgive us.” 

The great eye did not glow. It stared straight ahead. I could not bear to remain before its gaze any longer.

*  *  *  *  *  *

The last daystar is low on the horizon. Very low. It is still there, in fact, though the silver nightstars have now appeared. Closer now. It is getting closer as I walk.

It is not a star.

I stop in my tracks. I can smell it, and my fingers twitch at the sensation of its presence. It is alive after all. I did not touch it in the ravine. I could not bear to.

The eye continues to approach, though I am standing still, and I understand. I am no longer the tracker, nor the hunter.

It is both.

Red light beams through the snow-filled air, and I feel the heat of it on my face.

My voice rasps out against the wind. I don’t know why:

“Hear me,” I say unbidden, though I doubt the creature can understand my speech. “You are no beast. I know this now. The Makuta told us that you were Keeta Ongu, last of your kind.”

One last heavy step, and it stands over me, a black shape beyond the margins of my sight.

“I wish I had understood before, for the sake of my friends, but we hunted you and harried you, and now it is done. You are no beast. You are the last, and so you must survive.”

The eye does not blink, nor waver. I am transfixed.

“Spare me,” I say, “and I will tell the Makuta that you are no more. I swear. On the third eye of Kalmah I swear it. Judge me, as you did before.”

A moment passes, and I spread my arms wide, wincing at the pain. The black shape stands before me, and my sight is filled with the light of the great eye.

“You are no beas—”

My words are battered away as a sudden roar flattens me to the ground. The air shakes with the noise, and all my senses are overwhelmed as I wait for death to come. The smell of the creature is everywhere, all around, and my eyes register nothing but red, red rage, red judgment, red death—

*  *  *  *  *  *

I awaken face down in the snow. It is dark, and pain moves through my legs and through my ruined fingers. I feel the pull of sleep once more, and I wish to let go, but something stops me.

I groan and roll over with some effort. I am alone, and the wind has subsided. Snow is falling gently on my face.

My head throbs as I raise it, looking around. I want to lay back down, but I can’t yet. I squint my third eye and focus. I can see my footprints and the dark stain of fluid leading back up the slope, still just visible beneath a layer of snowfall. I cannot have been lying here for long.

I raise myself on one arm, and the pain in my legs jolts my weary brain further awake. I crane my neck around, to look where the creature had stood.

But there are no other tracks, no sign of a trail. The snow is unbroken. Not only that, but the smell of the creature is gone. Not even a trace. My mind is fuzzy, and sleep pulls at me again. It is very cold, and though I am used to the cold, even my body has limits. Sleep, rest. Your companions are gone. You are alone. It would be better . . .

No. I struggle up shakily, stamp my twisted legs, and roar with the pain in them. The pain is real, even if my memories are confused. It angers me, and the anger is good.

I start walking again. This time, I will not stop.

Ahead, the nightstars burn silver above the tundra and the mountains of storm, and I rage at them, for they are so far away, and I have so far to go.

I rage like a beast, a wounded beast, because that is how I will survive. The anger warms me, and I feel my eyes burn red with it, red with loss, and with rage, red with death . . .

You are no beast. You are the last, and so you must survive.

I have come through confusion, to the other side of fear. I have seen the last of the Keeta Ongu, and looked into its eye with my own.

Judge me, as you did before.

I am no beast.

I am the last.

And so I must survive.

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