Obviously, that had been a big mistake.
The 'mistake' was a large and ferocious-looking animal, vaguely feline in conformation. It had tan and black stripes along its body, reminding her somewhat of the holo-vids that she had seen in school of a Terran tiger. But it was much larger than any Terran tiger --- at least twenty feet from its snout to the tip of its twitching tail. Its claws and fangs made the men's knives look absolutely puny by comparison.
Immediately dropping the tree she rushed out into the clearing. She reached the beast just as it sprang for the two men, just barely getting a hold of its long tail. Digging in her heels, she was able to slow its charge. Pulling back with her arms, she was then able to deflect its charge and fling it aside, tossing it back into the middle of the clearing. Springing forward she interposed herself between the beast and the two men, shielding them with her nearly invulnerable body.
The beast quickly scrambled back up to its feet. The long tail flicked from side to side as the beast padded toward her. Picking up a small boulder --- no more than four feet across and weighing not much more than four tons --- she hurled it at the beast.
With agility surprising in such a large creature, it dodged the projectile --- which went on bouncing and rolling for another fifty feet --- then reared up on its hind legs, towering to nearly twice Leysen's height. It roared at her as it waved both its forelegs and its midlegs, with its razor-sharp claws fully unsheathed.
Midlegs?
Of course! Remembering back to the hypno-teacher's lessons, Leysen recalled that the mammalian animals on this planet all had six limbs. She also recalled that this was a santha, the fiercest predator on the planet. Its front paws almost functioned as hands, while its middle paws could be used both for walking and for grasping its prey. The santha wasn't poisonous; with all that muscle behind them the claws and fangs didn't need any chemical help in order to be deadly.
The santha roared again, reminding her that this was no sanitized school holo-vid. She dug in her heels, bracing herself to meet its charge.
The santha didn't have the intelligence to know that this new --- and smaller --- creature was a female. Nor did it care. It just knew that it was interfering with its dinner. And nothing ever interfered with a santha's dinner. Not unless it wanted to become an appetizer. The santha didn't even pause to consider just how the newcomer had done the interfering, tossing it halfway across the clearing. Snarling its challenge, it leaped at the newcomer.
Even though she had braced herself, the santha's size and the sheer force of its leap still knocked Leysen down to the ground. She felt its sharp claws against her skin, its great weight pressing her into the ground. She felt its fangs closing about her throat, her head almost completely disappearing into its cavernous maw. The carrion stench on its breath was almost enough to overpower her by itself.
However the claws and the fangs did not penetrate.
For the first time in the history of its species, a santha had encountered a living being whose skin its razor-sharp claws and fangs couldn't pierce.
Just because it couldn't pierce her skin didn't mean that there was no pain, as its powerful muscles drove its fangs against her skin.
The santha was much too big for her to get her arms around it. Instead, she got her right hand on one of its forelegs. The claws were digging into her breast, much harder than Tillek and Velder's hands ever did while feeding.
With some effort she managed to pull the huge paw off of her breast. Without letting go of it she twisted. There was a satisfying CRACK as the bone broke. One down, five to go, she thought to herself. There was no time to savor the satisfaction however. In addition to the other five limbs there still was the mouth to take care of.
Getting hold of another foreleg she twisted again. The santha roared in pain --- letting go of her throat --- as this limb also broke under the nearly irresistible power of the young girl. But this time, instead of letting go, she continued twisting, flipping the huge santha off of her and onto its side. Stiffening the fingers of her other hand she jabbed at the santha's throat.
Before her blow could connect, one of the santha's midlegs struck her side. Even though the claws again failed to pierce her skin, there was a lot of force behind the blow --- a Terran sledgehammer would have felt gentle by comparison. The blow was hard enough to knock her to one side, causing her blow to miss its target. Her hand slid up to her wrist into the hard-packed dirt.
As she tried to pull her hand out of the ground, the santha struck at her again. A huge paw struck her in the side, lifting her off of the ground and pivoting her body around her embedded hand, almost dislocating her shoulder.
At the same time the santha lunged for her again on its remaining legs. The huge mouth narrowly missed her head as she swung around. Instinctively, she kicked out at it. Even crippled as it was, it was still fast and agile. It avoided her kick, then closed its mouth on her thigh. Her entire leg seemed to disappear into its cavernous maw.
Again, its fangs failed to pierce her skin. That didn't mean that it didn't hurt, however, as the powerful jaws applied several tons of pressure. She screamed in pain as she tried to shake her leg free. Neither she nor the santha noticed one of the fangs breaking off.
The santha was puzzled at the lack of any taste of blood from the prey in its mouth. But its small brain didn't remain focused on that puzzle for very long, as its powerful neck muscles moved its head, shaking the prey in its mouth in its instinctive way of breaking a prey's neck.
The shaking was powerful enough to put enormous stresses on Leysen's arm, where her hand was still embedded in the ground. If her arm had been made of mere steel, it probably would have snapped in two. As it was, the shaking proved to be the santha's undoing, as it wrenched her hand out of the ground in an explosion of dirt.
Without her hand anchoring her to the ground, she was thrown about wildly. Just as wildly, she struck out with her fists. One of them struck the back of the santha's skull.
The blow didn't land with the full power that the young girl's star-born muscles were capable of delivering. But it still struck with more than enough force to crush the skull, driving sharp shards of bone deep into the santha's brain.
The jaws opened as the huge body shook with its death convulsions, throwing Leysen into the air. She landed on the grass more than forty feet away.
Momentarily dazed, she quickly recovered and got back up on her feet. She walked quickly back to where the santha lay on the grass, its tail still twitching slightly. Cautiously circling behind it, she was barely able to get her arms around its neck. A mighty flex of her powerful arms broke the santha's neck, finishing the job that her fist had started.
She stood back up, feeling no exhilaration at having defeated and killed such a large and ferocious beast. Instead, she could barely able to control the shaking of her body, as she crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. This was the first time that she had actually killed anything larger than an insect. She started and jumped backward about ten feet when the tail twitched again. But that was just the final bit of movement from the dead santha.
The two men had retrieved their coveralls and had put them on before they worked up the courage to join her and the dead santha.
"I... I thought those things stayed higher up in the mountains," she said, looking up at the snow-capped peaks on either side of the pass that they were approaching.
"They usually do," Tillek answered. "And they usually don't hunt during the day, preferring to do it by night. It must have come down looking for food."
She turned away from the beast, trying to forget the pain that she had felt. She went back and retrieved her tree trunk, bringing it into the clearing. Using her hands, she chopped it up into shorter logs. After splitting some of them, she laid out the fire. Gently caressing her breasts with her hands, a quick burst of her heat vision lit the fire, setting it blazing brightly without any need for tinder and kindling.
While she was building the fire, Tillek and Velder began skinning and dressing the santha. They both had picked up some experience from the time that they had spent on the planet, living among the inhabitants on the eastern part of the continent.
While the two men began cooking the meat, Leysen walked over to the stream. And into it, washing off the dirt and the blood. The santha's blood, not hers. Not caring whether the men were watching her or not, she peeled off her uniform in order to clean herself thoroughly.
There was more than enough meat to feed a hundred people. However, the meat --- even after being cooked over the fire --- proved to be stringy and tough, nigh inedible for the two Betas. Leysen, however, found it a pleasant change from the leaves and bark that had been her exclusive diet for the past week.
The two men watched hungrily as she ate not only her steak but theirs as well. And more, rapidly tearing off and consuming three more slabs of meat, replacing some of the energy that she had used up during the trek.
When she had finally satisfied her hunger, it was time for the two men to satisfy theirs. Lying down on her back, she slid her fingers underneath the straps of her uniform and pulled them aside to expose her nipples. She was briefly tempted to let them try to prime the pumps themselves, letting them know that they were fully dependent on her not only to protect them from the local wildlife, but also for their sustenance. However, she quickly pushed that thought aside. Lightly massaging her breasts with her fingers, she prepared them to deliver the energy to the two hungry Betas.
When she was ready for them, they knelt at her sides, eagerly suckling at their only source of nourishment. She hated to admit it even to herself, but she was beginning to enjoy the process, their hands and mouths caressing her so softly. Bearing in mind that they were fragile Betas, she wrapped her arms loosely around their bodies. Her eyes closed as she savored their delicate caresses.
She had let Mellek touch her there only once, and she hadn't allowed him to use his mouth. She had often tried to imagine what it would feel like to have him suckling at her breasts, using his Prime strength, far more strength than these two Betas possessed.
Even when they had finished feeding --- drawing all of the energy that they could hold from her young breasts --- she kept her arms loosely around their bodies. It was only when she finally noticed the change in the feel of their caresses that she opened her eyes and looked down at them.
She immediately saw that they had finished feeding. It took her a little longer to realize that they were trying to push themselves away from her. It took her even longer to realize just why they were trying to push themselves away from her. But when she did, she immediately pulled her arms back and released them. They immediately pushed themselves off of her and got up their knees, gasping for breath.
She sat up. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize..." She had been so lost in the pleasurable feeling of their soft gentle caresses that she hadn't realized that she had been holding them so tightly.
"What were you trying to do, girl, kill us?" Tillek got up to his feet.
"I said I was sorry, Tillek." She looked down at the ground and clasped her hands behind her.
He glared at her for a moment, before turning his back and walking away, Velder at his heels.
As she rearranged the straps of her uniform to cover up her breasts, she wondered whether she should have crushed their fragile Beta skulls. If it wasn't for her, they would have frozen or starved to death long ago. And they never even bothered to thank her for it. Still angry, she put on her coveralls and zipped it up.
There was something else that she had learned from the hypno-teacher's lessons. Concentrating, she rubbed the bridge of her nose with her right forefinger as she struggled to remember what it was. Then it came to her. What if that santha had a mate somewhere in the neighborhood? She was still angry enough with the two men to let the second santha kill the two men for her.
She immediately regretted the thought. Sure, they had treated her shabbily the entire time that they'd been on this planet. But they didn't deserve to die because of it. She sprang up to her feet and ran after them, catching up them in a matter of seconds. "Wait! There might be another one of those things around. Didn't you say that they hunted in pairs? And that they prefer to hunt by night?"
The two men immediately stopped, turning to look at her.
"No, they don't hunt in pairs," Tillek said, almost as if he was a teacher correcting a wayward student. But his tone immediately changed, as the implications sank in. "But you're right in that its mate probably isn't very far away. And they do prefer to hunt by night."
"So what do we do if it shows up?" She shuddered, crossing her arms in front of her and hugging herself. "I don't really want to fight another one tonight. I'd rather face a Kintzi." That was an exaggeration, but not much of one.
Tillek looked at the sun, which had started to set behind the mountains to the west. "We definitely can't travel at night. That would be worse than staying put."
"So what do we do?"
"First, we make sure we keep the fire going all night." Tillek led the way back to the fire, tossing another log onto it. "And could we ask you to take the first watch, Leysen?" He surprised her by using her name for the first time. He surprised her even more when he added, "Please?"
The anger she had just been feeling towards the men vanished, like a soap bubble in a forest fire, to be replaced by concern --- almost pity --- for the two men who were so dependent on her for their very survival.
But that didn't completely erase her fear of encountering another santha. "But what do I do if its mate shows up? Will the fire keep it away?"
"Let's hope it does." The two men instinctively closed in protectively around her. Not to protect the young girl from the threats of the wild, but rather to have her protect the two of them.
Leysen stayed awake through the night, watching the larger of the planet's two moons work its way across the sky, occasionally breaking off another log and tossing it onto the fire. Occasionally one of the men would stir in his sleep. She thought about waking one of them to take over the watch. However, she could go a couple of days at a stretch without any sleep, especially since she wasn't exerting herself all that much, even if the march was exhausting for the Betas.
And if the other santha was to show up, the few seconds' delay in waking her could make a difference. She knew that she was not a light sleeper, and often had trouble reacting immediately after awakening.
Reminded of the reason that she was staying awake, she looked around again, her eyes sparkling as she took in more than just the clearing. To the west she could see the pass towards which they'd been climbing. She still wasn't convinced that it was the most direct route through the mountains --- she had wanted to take the valley to the left but had been overruled --- but it definitely looked as if it was passable.
She wondered whether there were any santhas in the other valley.
Hugging her knees to her chest she looked up at the stars, trying to find the red giant around which circled Tiburon, her home. A home that she probably would never see again. "Father, I'm here!" she whispered, trying to will her thoughts to him. "Come take me home! Please!"
As on previous nights, neither the stars nor her father answered her.
Still feeling the adrenaline from the battle with the santha, she could not just sit still. Stripping down to her school uniform she began doing some exercises.
Velder lay on his side, watching the fire. And the young girl seated on the other side tending it.
He and Tillek had once accompanied the Talisi warriors on a hunting expedition when they encountered a santha. Two of the men had been badly mauled before the other six were able to kill it with their swords and spears. And that santha had been smaller than the one the girl had just killed. Killed with just her bare hands.
He had seen Warriors Prime in combat before. Never mind that the santha was a dumb beast, he had never seen a Warrior Prime defeat an opponent so large.
And the young girl wasn't a fully-fledged Warrior Prime yet.
So young, and yet so strong.
And so beautiful. Stars, she was beautiful!
Again, he couldn't help but remember back to their first meeting. Having her in his arms, being in her arms, having her lips against his. That had been the closest that he had come to having a life-long fantasy fulfilled. A fantasy that he knew would stay just that --- an unfulfilled fantasy.
As he continued to watch her, she got up and walked to the huge tree trunk she had brought back. One chop of her arm broke off a piece about three feet long. Carrying the piece back to the fire, her powerful hands quickly split it into several smaller logs. Sticking her hand into the fire she rearranged the burning logs, before adding two more. She laid the other logs nearby. She then brushed off her hands and sat back down.
She did not remain seated very long. She stood up, peeling off her coveralls and her uniform, and began doing some stretching exercises. He could not tear his eyes away from the naked girl, her body and limbs flexing so beautifully. She then walked over to the river and squatted down, putting her arms around the base of a boulder as far as she could reach. She then started straightening her legs.
He gasped as the boulder started to come up out of the ground.
Like an iceberg most of the boulder was underground. It had to be at least twenty feet across at its widest. He knew that a dozen Betas couldn't have budged it. Yet she seemed to have no trouble with it as she pulled it completely out of the ground and pressed it over her head.
He watched in silent fascination as the huge muscles of the Prime exploded onto her slender body, glistening in the moonlight. He continued to watch as she set the boulder down, he would have sworn that he felt the ground shake. She then began doing isometric exercises, the steely muscles of her body providing far more resistance than the boulder could.
She then began jogging around the perimeter of the clearing. Her long legs flashed in the moonlight as she increased her pace from not much faster than his best sprint until she was not much more than a blur streaking around the clearing.
Returning to the stream, she waded into the cold water to bathe again, though he doubted whether she had worked up much of a sweat.
With a silent sigh, he rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. To try to banish the memory of the sight of her naked body.
Fortunately there were no nocturnal visitors to the camp, other than the ever-present insects and a few jitkaws swooping down to steal pieces of the santha carcass. In the morning, she breakfasted by the simple expedience of tearing more chunks of meat from the santha carcass and devouring them, without even bothering to cook them over the fire first. After eating her fill, she fed the two men. Remembering what she had nearly done to them the previous night, she was careful to keep her hands to herself.
After the two men had fed, they finished skinning the carcass. They had neither the time nor the materials to properly cure the hide, but they carried the skin with them for the day's march --- they weren't about to stay where the santha's mate might find them. Tillek called an early halt to the march so that they could spend some time making adequate coverings for the three of them.
Naturally the men got the bigger pieces, in the form of simple breeches and cloaks. Not only because they were bigger, but because they needed the protection from the chill more than she did, the thick fur making excellent protection from the cold. Not needing the protection from the cold like the men did, Leysen merely got a crude vest instead of a cloak.
At least she didn't have to do the sewing --- she had never been very good at it. Not that the men were that much better at it, but they were better with their hands than she was.
The back of santha skull had been smashed, where Leysen's fist had struck it. But the skin was mostly undamaged, only bloody. After cleaning it Tillek was able to fashion the head into a hood for himself, fastening it to his cloak.
Leysen thought it was a little too ostentatious. And pretentious --- after all, he didn't kill the santha. However she refrained from voicing her opinion. If he wanted to carry the extra weight, she would let him. She certainly wasn't going to carry it for him.
It was late in the afternoon when they first spotted signs of civilization. They had crossed over the worst of the mountains and now for the past few days it had been getting warmer as they descended. It was also a little drier on this side of the mountains. Not a desert by any means, but the vegetation --- still a dense forest --- was no longer of the rain forest variety. And not only was it easier going down than it had been going up, but the insects had been thinning out as well as the vegetation. And only the day before, they had caught their first sight of the western ocean through a gap in the mountains.
As they followed the river down, they several times considered building a raft --- or perhaps a dugout canoe --- and floating down. However there were numerous rapids, making this an impractical approach.
Rapids weren't the only obstacles on the river. There were waterfalls as well. In fact, twice she'd had to lower the men down sheer cliffs. Both times she'd thrown the rope down after them and then climbed down the sheer rock face, creating her own hand- and footholds as she went.
She'd intended to land on her feet and let her knees absorb the impact. However she had failed to take into account the higher gravity of the planet. Her legs went into the ground almost up to her knees as she pitched forward onto her face.
Embarrassed, she extricated her legs and picked herself up, brushing the dirt off of her coveralls. The men were looking at her, trying to suppress their smiles. She glared at the men, daring them to laugh at her. They simply wiped off their smiles as they turned, shouldered their packs, and began walking.
They had just rounded the end of a ridge when they saw what appeared to be cultivated fields in the broad valley ahead of them. Several plumes of smoke --- apparently from cook fires --- rose into the sky. "People! We made it!" Leysen shouted and started running toward the valley, momentarily forgetting that the two Betas wouldn't be able to match her pace.
"Wait!" Tillek yelled out. Only her keen hearing allowed her to hear him. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw the two men, over a hundred yards behind her. At this reminder that they were mere Betas, she turned around and trotted back to them, disappointed that they couldn't be at the village in a matter of minutes.
"Before you go rushing down there, girl," Tilled said, when she had rejoined them, "we need to plan what we're going to tell them. We need to be able to explain how three people came to be traveling down from the mountains in the middle of winter."
"We certainly can't tell them the truth," the normally quiet Velder added.
"Absolutely right," Tillek agreed. "If they find out we're Arions, and the word gets to the Protector, then we're dead." He turned his head and looked right at Leysen. "And that applies especially to you, girl."
A shiver ran through Leysen's body at the mention of the Velorian Planetary Protector. A shiver that had nothing to do with the chilly mountain air. If there was one thing in the universe that even a Warrior Prime feared, it was a Velorian. And the Protectors were specially bred and trained for the express purpose of killing Arions.
A Protector had killed her mother, before Leysen had gotten into her teens. So had most of the platoon that her mother had led, though they had succeeded in fatally wounding the Velorian. Nearly an entire infantry platoon, in exchange for a single Velorian Protector.
She and her father sometimes had discussed avenging her death. But none of those discussions had ever envisioned anything like this.
As young and inexperienced as she was, Leysen knew that she wouldn't stand a chance against a Protector in single combat. And single combat it would have to be; the two unarmed --- or even armed --- Betas would be less than useless in such a situation.
"We saw no signs of the presence of a Protector during our earlier stay," Velder said, brightening Leysen's mood a little.
"That doesn't mean that she's not here," Tillek said, immediately darkening Leysen's mood again. "They often hide in plain sight among the natives on these human-populated planets. Just as we did, when we were here the first time. Besides, we were in the east. She could be here in the west."
Oh great! Why didn't he mention that before making them come this way? Leysen was half tempted to turn around and start trekking across the continent to the east, and if the two Betas couldn't keep up with her, well, that would be their problem and not hers.
Thinking back to the hypno-teacher's lessons, Leysen couldn't believe that a Velorian woman --- for Protectors were all exclusively female --- would ever want to live in such a male-dominated society as Talis. She knew that she wouldn't, not that she had much choice in the matter right now. Not in a society where women were considered property, barely above the beasts of burden. Maybe not even that high, the men had told her native stories and songs about Warriors having to make choices between their favorite mounts and their favorite women.
The choices invariably went the same way.
"For all we know, she may be in that village ahead," Tillek added, interrupting Leysen's thoughts and causing another shiver to run through her body.
Earlier, they had briefly discussed how they would approach the Talisi, when the opportunity finally presented itself. Now that the opportunity was actually here, they discussed it in earnest.
As they resumed hiking down the mountainside, they finalized their plans.
It was Velder who found the cave at the base of the cliff to their left. "Hey, this is just what we need to cache our stuff," he stopped and called out.
Leysen and Tillek walked over to where Velder was standing and looked. It wasn't really a cave, just a depression in the cliff. But as Velder had said, it was a solution to their final problem, an ideal place to hide most of their Arion equipment, safe from the elements and wild animals. And from curious natives.
"We may as well camp here tonight," Tillek said to Velder. "The girl may be able to make it there before nightfall, but we can't. And you know hospitable the Talisi usually are to strangers who show up at night."
Leysen wasn't sure whether that was the real reason, or simply that the men were too tired from the day's march. However, she refrained from saying anything. It wasn't their fault that they had been born Betas, tiring so easily. She was tired of walking as well, though she wasn't tired physically.
Gratefully removing their packs, the three of them stashed most of their supplies, such as they had, inside the cave. The damaged signal beacon and the hypno-teacher went inside. So did their Arion clothing. The rest, what they would still carry with them, went into the men's smaller packs. They retained their santha pelts. Everything else fit into her pack. Made of synthetics, it would be impervious to water and small animals.
After feeding the men, the three of them huddled in the cave for what hopefully would be their last night out in the wild.
In the morning she fed the men, hopefully for the last time. Afterwards she rolled a small boulder --- a little over five feet in diameter and weighing not much more than ten tons --- across the cave entrance.
Still, it was not without more than a little trepidation that they resumed their hike down the steep mountainside, approaching the village and their first encounter with the Talisi.
He crept forward through the brush, making no more sound than a slitsa, steadfastly ignoring the insects buzzing around his mud-smeared face. Peering around a tree he could see his objective, leaning carelessly against another tree. How typical of the Rantureans, he thought, so confident in the security of their isolated valley so far away from Porea. A disgrace, just like all of the entire Turean people. Well, they would learn the folly of their ways soon enough tonight. Too bad the lesson wouldn't do them any good after they were dead.
This was Dellin's first opportunity as point, to kill an outlying sentry. He had participated in other raids before, but always in the main body. As a promising young warrior he had always acquitted himself well, hence the honor accorded him tonight.
Dellin put his head down when the sentry stirred, pushing himself away from his tree. He walked about ten paces to another tree --- to Dellin's left --- where he turned his back to Dellin and faced the tree. Dellin didn't need either the sound or the pungent odor that assaulted his nostrils to tell him that the sentry was emptying his bladder against the base of the tree.
Drawing his knife from the sheath on his harness, Dellin sprang forward. His left hand went to the sentry's mouth to stifle any possible outcry while his right hand brought the blade to the sentry's throat. The blade made a soft SNICK as it slit the throat from ear to ear, an even softer gurgle escaping from the lips of the sentry as his lifeblood pumped out.
Wiping the blade clean against his victim's thigh as he lowered the body to the ground, Dellin replaced the knife in its sheath. Cupping his hands in front of his mouth, he softly mimicked the hunting call of the jitkaw.
Less than half a minute later two warriors appeared from the brush and joined him, one of them prodding the corpse on the ground with his foot before squatting down and relieving it of its weapons.
Cocking his head, Dellin listened. Not hearing any drums, he raised his hands to his mouth and mimicked the jitkaw again, this time the mating call of the male. The answering call of the female came from his right.
Grinning to each other in anticipation, the three warriors drew their swords before disappearing into the brush and continuing their advance toward Ranture.
