The Great Kithanu

The call. Ksast could hear it again, shuddering in his heart. The great call of his people, the pulse of life in his blood. The call to battle, the call to strife. The call to joy.

He opened his mouth wide to roar, to join his voice to the call of thousands... and took in thick gobbets of gore. Choking, he rolled his head and spat the stuff back out. His throat palpatated violently, clearing itself instantly and allowing him to breathe again. The taste of his own blood, familiar and reassuring, was strong in his mouth, a lingering aftertaste that reminded him of goredrenched days.

He sniffed, drawing in the cloying scent of blood both old and new on the air, the heavy animal scent of their prey, and the familiar scent of his hunt-mate. He felt the wind running with scouring intensity over his form, blowing dust into open wounds and battering his face. With a heavy grunt he turned over, annoyed by its assault, the sound of his armour scraping on the hard ground somewhat distorted and distant. It was then that he realised he had lost his left ear.

The sharp, flaring sensation, like freezing air being blown rhythmically against the side of his head was the telling factor. He focused on the signals his body was sending for a moment, then let out a rumbling, irritated growl, felt it ripple up his throat from the depths of his massive chest. Finally, he opened his eyes.

He nodded at the sight before him. It confirmed the truth that his body spoke, and told him that his chances of survival were not as high as they could have been.

He was looking at his left arm. It had been severed at the shoulder and lay a foot away from him, still clutching one of his throwing hatchets. He sat up, placing his right elbow on his armoured thigh, regarding the limb almost in accusation. It had failed him, and he would not miss it. Another would grow in its place if he lived through the next month. That was just the beginning of his woes.

One of the curled, rolling horns atop his head had been broken off, and there was an inch-wide slash through his left eye, one of many gifts from their prey. There were other gashes in his stomach, chest, arms and legs, though the heavily dented bronze armour that was buckled to him in large plates had protected him from some damage. Several of his ribs had been snapped, making breathing a little difficult, and his left leg had been broken in two places.

He kicked with it, to determine if it was actually useless. A pair of dull, answering aches told him that it was not, but it would slow him down while it healed. Even if he had his eyes closed, the flaring, cold sensation from his left eye would have told him it was useless for now. The eye would be back with the arm. Most of the gashes in his body had stopped bleeding already, though the deeper ones that had bit into muscle or scratched bone were closing up more slowly.

Too slow, too stupid. Shouldn’t have ducked. Should have rolled.

For an instant he wondered what had happened. It had attacked suddenly, and he had remembered nothing after that. Part of the mystery was solved by a keening screech, and he turned his head to look at their quarry.

It was beautiful, and a smile spread across his face to see it, a smile which faded after a moment. He blinked a couple of times, puzzling as to the strange sensation in his mouth, then spat a great gobbet of blood into his hand. He surrounded it with a fist that could crush the skulls of the soft-souls without terrible exertion, then opened it again. His muddy green skin was stained with redness, reminding him of a sunset he had watched on a pool of water back at his tribehold. Here, though, the whiteness in his palm was not flyfish leaping from rock pool to rock pool, but three of his teeth. He hadn’t even noticed that they’d been dislodged. With a little awkward movement, he put the teeth into one of the pouches at his side, then drew it shut again and stood.

The kithanu before him was a giant among its kind. Its twin sets of tusks were almost as wide as Ksast’s arm, ending in deadly ivory points, spires of death extending above and below its muzzle. It snarled, shifting its massive bulk, then let out another deafening screech, but it could do no more.

Its short, thick neck had been pinned to the dusty ground by one of the heavily reinforced catch collars they had carried with them. The collar consisted of multiple bands of steel designed for two configurations. One was a tight circle around the neck, restricting mobility and limiting the threat of a bite, the shape they’d be using to take it back home. The other, it’s current shape, was a hoop, bladed on both ends to be driven into the barren earth, pinning their prey against it. And what prey it was.

Its scales were red, mottled by black, running back from its bony head to the majority of its bulk, four squat legs armed with viciously clawed feet, its huge body defended by a heavy spiked shell and a long tail with a bony lump the size of Ksast’s torso on the end. Even now, pinned, unable to do more than claw at the ground to try and dig the collar free, that tail was swinging lazily back and forth, daring something to attempt to take advantage of its weakness. Ksast imagined that the tail had struck him in the chest.

He grinned. It was magnificent beyond words. A savage storm personified, capable of destroying anything put up before it. The devastation that surrounded him only widened his expression, and the damage done to him in the opening flash of their meeting confirmed every wild expectation he could have placed. A thick, pounding laugh ushered from him as he surveyed the scene.

A rolling wasteland was at his back, marked by the ravages of the wind that blew mournful storms of dust in swirls and dances. Boulders and rocky outcrops jutted from the land, here and there great gashes fell into valleys Ksast knew were filled with decay and poisonous stink. Nothing lived there, not even Cyldon.

As he stared, images flickered through his mind, and he felt himself taking steps he never had, saw his own claws scratching marks into the boulders before him though he had not travelled this path before. The call of his people shuddered through his mind, and brought up memories of this place, echoes of the hundreds that had travelled this land in years past that told him now what to expect. Terrion hunters and kithanu packs, blood beetles and swampland. He knew he wasn’t taking his prey back to the tribehold that way, even though prey was bountiful. His injuries were too serious.

He turned and looked upon the oasis. It was a spot of brilliant life in this blasted land. Wide-branched and leafy trees stretched up around a deep, luminous pool of water, gleaming as if the moonlight had turned to liquid and gathered here to be admired. Dark green grass grew around the pool, and when he sniffed the air again, the scent of blood and battle was mixed with pungent aromas from the fruits that hung from the trees. But that wasn’t where they’d fought.

There was a scar upon the oasis now. An area of torn up earth and shattered trees, cracked stumps with their trunks lying nearby where the kithanu’s rage had felled them, bright red Cyldon blood dotting the leaves and staining the ground. It was in the centre of this scar that the kithanu was pinned, the shattering storm, eager to be released again. In truth, Ksast would relish to see it unleashed again, to aid the called. His mind began to fill with the successful hunts of his predecessors, hundreds of different places he had never been to, hundreds of different kithanu, and every one smaller than the one he had caught today.

Ksast finally added his proud thunderous voice to the call, raising his arm above his head and roaring with all his might, but his snapped ribs made his voice wheeze strangely. The kithanu answered, joining its deafening, high-pitched screech to the call, its frustration at defeat only growing the glory of the victory. Theirs would be a truly great memory for the called to savour. They had even found an oasis for a new tribehold to be formed around.

Ksast looked around for Bot, wondering where the architect of this victory was. A few slightly awkward paces, marked by aches and freezing feelings from his body, gave him his answer.

Bot was lying on the other side of the pool, seemingly launched from the scar all the way over the water, impaled by a broken tree. Ksast saw a trio of small, reptillian creatures suddenly straighten from the grasses, then flee into the undergrowth like a gust of wind. Scavengers come to feed on the transfixed Cyldon. The instinct to face the called openly was not within them. They made decent meals, though.

He walked with difficulty around the pool’s circumference, and came to find Bot clawing feebly at the stake pinning through the side. The curling horns on Bot’s head were intact, both ears were functioning, and the cheeky lines of a smile played around that snarling mouth, as if it were ready at an instant to joke or laugh. Like Ksast, Bot’s skin was a muddy green, with dark lines running across its entirety. Unlike Ksast, Bot was not faring well.

The kithanu’s tail had struck true and cleanly. Bot’s breastplate had offered no protection, and the damage dealt had been extreme. Ribs were peeking from the ruined mass of chest into which the breastplate had been violently forced, and that was only the beginning of the damage. Though all of Bot’s limbs were attached, one leg was all but annihilated.

As Ksast stared at it, the call surged in his mind, and he saw a pair of quick flashes. He saw himself facing the kithanu, felt his heart pounding in his ears and mind, felt the joy of facing such great and terrible prey, of having achieved victory, for it was pinned before him. Then he felt the thudding, terrible impact of that whipping tail as the kithanu spun as far to the side as it could. His leg was struck, his entire body tossed into the air, and he was upside down when the tail coiled back like a scorpion’s sting and thrust into his chest with all the power in the creature’s body.

Ksast nodded. The flashes said it all. Bot was beginning to join the call already. The voice was leaving the shell, and flying free to unite with them all. Ksast found Bot’s eyes, dark small orbs with brilliant redness in the centre, above a mouth fixed into an irritated snarl.

“Best hunter,” Bot declared, twitching the claws of one hand and pointing at Ksast.

“Best hunter,” Ksast grinned, for Bot, the younger of the two, had always let Ksast take the spoken credit for all of their hunts. But there was no doubt about this one, as Ksast stepped forward, raised his good foot, and brought it down with all his might on Bot’s throat.

Ksast spent a few moments stripping Bot’s body of armour and clothes that could be passed on, taking a moment only to sigh as he looked for the last time on the triple rows of her hard, small breasts. Four of them were mauled and barely distinguishable from the rest of her crushed chest, but her lowest two had escaped almost unharmed. She had been a strong female, and she had born several children by him. The loss of her shell among the called would weaken his tribehold. Ksast truly was the best hunter now. Though he would rather have earned that place through talent, his heart swelled with joy, and the knowledge of the new responsibility that would fall to him. His shell was strong, and his voice stronger. He knew he would not fail his tribe.

As he gathered up Bot’s double swords, the great curves of razor-sharp metal that she wielded one in each hand, he began to feel the memory of the battle with the kithanu flooding into him. That sense of satisfaction that he had felt in glimpses settled on his soul, as he assumed the role of the true hunter. The other memories they had shared would soon be his, and his alone, while her knowledge and experience would spread and diffuse through the called, so all could benefit from her life. No Cyldon voice could ever be silenced. Before long, all other tribeholds would know of this oasis, and soon more of the called would come to settle here. From every death, the voice of the Cyldon grew stronger, and the power of their shells grew with it.

Ksast found their hunting packs, dropped at the oasis’ edge after they had tracked their quarry here. He scavenged all he could carry from Bot’s before tying his own to his back, feeling the rough lizard skin rubbing comfortably against his body, filling his nose with its familiar old sweaty scent. He hooked four hobbler collars over his arm, and dragged the heavy pull chain along with him. It was his role to end the hunt, and bring the prey back to the tribehold. This would be their greatest prize, the great kithanu of the North that no other Cyldon had brought to ground. This would be their great leader Garak’s steed, and he would lead them against the soft-shells to test the called and the listeners.

Both sides would fight. Most would die. All would grow.

Such was the purpose of the called. To thrive, and to test, and to grow, in preparation for their one great battle, the great battle that slept and would one day awaken again. When that day came, the called and the listening soft-shells would once more stand as one, and end the sleeping war forever.

Heart bursting with pride, Ksast again faced the great Kithanu, snarling as it hissed a challenge at him. He grinned and pinned his severed arm to the ground with his foot, then yanked his hatchet free of his death-gripping hand. The crackling snaps of the dead fingers breaking as he wrenched his hatchet free brought echoes of verdant forests where the soft-shells roamed, and memories of Cyldon running and hunting there blinked through his mind like motes of dust through a shaft of sunlight.

Ksast walked to the Kithanu, matched its screeching challenge with a wheezing roar, then started kicking it violently in the head with his strong leg. His broken leg collapsed under him, the ground rose up to cradle, and pulsing aches were sent from his leg to his mind as if it were angry with him. He rose and put the haft of his hatchet to use, pounding the kithanu with all the strength his one-armed body could offer.

The beast cried out in high pitched whines, but after a full minute of Ksast grunting with exertion, pulling up a heavy sweat as he rhythmically rained blows down upon the beast’s brow, its whines turned to keening whistles, and its eyes seemed to glaze. It slumped heavily against the ground, throwing up a little cloud of loose dust. It was no longer attempting to paw free of the collar.

Ksast took a few deep breaths, then tossed his hatchet over his shoulder and shook his head in slight disbelief. Most prey would have been reduced to paste by that treatment. Any soft-shell would have been.

He took up the first of the hobblers, then moved cautiously in on the great Kithanu’s flank. He experimentally moved closer, testing to see if it were trying to lure him in. As he approached, it shifted its great bulk and whipped its tail against the ground, sending up a great spray of dirt and spreading a thudding wave through the earth that Ksast felt all through his body. But that was all. It slumped again, with a keening whistle, and he made his move.

He stepped in and slammed his shoulder stump against its leg, forcing it to bend closer to the ground. He slapped the hobbler on. It snapped shut around the Kithanu’s knee and lower thigh, and he hugged it against his body while tightening the screws with his hand. He gritted his teeth and started muttering obscenities at the Kithanu as it tried to resist, shifting this way and that, causing one of the forearm-thick spikes from its shell to worm into his body through the stump of his shoulder. He ignored the ache from that place and just kept working, patiently and meticulously tightening the screws. There was no way the spike could kill him. That was all that mattered.

The Kithanu’s massive, trunk-like leg raised, lifting him off his feet, but it couldn’t lift him very high or even attempt to shake him off. It planted its foot again, let out a whine of frustration, and shrugged against him, driving the spike deeper into his shoulder. Ksast felt a stream of fresh blood pouring down his side, and insects buzzed about, drawn to it.

Finally, there was a click from the hobbler, and he pulled his shoulder stump free of the impaling spike, leaving it slicked and dripping with his bright red blood. He smiled. Now his scent was on it, the creature felt more, not less, like his.

Over the next half hour he hobbled its remaining three legs, beating it half unconscious before making each attempt, and taking extra time out to numb its tail by cutting into the scales just above the base, enfeebling it. It was a very minor wound, and the kithanu would recover in a matter of hours, but he didn’t need longer than that.

Finally, he stepped back, dirty and sheened with sweat that mixed with blood from fresh gashes, the scent of it strong in his nostrils; but not so strong that he could not smell the carrion birds approaching for Bot’s shell. He looked up and shielded his eye against the sun, watching as they wheeled down and alighted around Bot’s body, already beginning to tear at her flesh.

Ksast drank from the oasis, filled his water skin, took some fruits from the trees, then made his final preparations. Concussing the kithanu one more time, he yanked the catch collar free of the earth, then clamped it shut around the kithanu’s neck, switching it to its second configuration and telescoping it to sheath the beast’s whole neck. It could barely move its head from side to side, now. Its bite was still a threat, but a much more predictable and avoidable one. He fixed the heavy chain to the back of the collar, listening to the scrape of metal on scale, a familiar music that raised a smile. The easy part was complete. Now the difficult part began.

He wrapped the chain around his body, looping it through hoops built into his battered armour. He took up his discarded hatchet and hung it from his belt, then lifted his severed arm and walked back to the kithanu. He kicked it lightly in the head to stir it. As it raised its head and let out a hiss, he thrust his arm in its face.

“Eat,” he said. “Must stay strong.”

It blinked at him stupidly, before opening its maw wide, revealing massive razored teeth, and ripping off a quarter of his arm with a single bite. As it chewed, Ksast ripped the rest away so it couldn’t eat it all in one go, leaving sinews and bone protruding. He didn’t have that much food to go between them, and couldn’t guarantee he would be able to find more on the way back to the tribehold in his current condition. All of this would be for nothing if his voice escaped his shell before the prey was returned.

He took a bite out of his own bicep, tasted his own blood and flesh, felt his senses come alive at the flavour. He drank up some of the dripping blood from the kithanu’s bite wound then awkwardly reached back and shoved the bloody arm into his pack. It would all be gone by the end of the day, but it would keep them both going for that long. He wished he could have taken some of Bot’s shell with them, but he could not leave any of their equipment behind. He was a good hunter. No. He was the best hunter. He would get back alive, even without Bot’s help.

Setting his pack and angling his body forward, he gritted his teeth and started dragging the hobbled, weakened kithanu along after him. His senses were alive, the danger of his position rode high in his mind, his hunter’s instincts prepared themselves for the traditional escape tricks all kithanu tried.

His mind flooded with the experiences of generation upon generation of hunters, memories overlapping and informing, helping him to see what was and was not likely to work. At the same time, the thousands of feet that had explored these lands in the past two generations pattered out a mental path that would lead him back to the tribehold.

He smiled, as he felt more of the memories he had shared with Bot flowing into him, those useless memories that only he could ever care about. He knew, with sudden intensity, how funny he would have looked to Bot, one armed, one eyed, one eared, almost one legged, his half-eaten and severed arm protruding from his pack. A wreck of a Cyldon, dragging the largest kithanu in the history of hunters behind him, a scaled mountain humbled by a lizard.

Ksast laughed Bot’s laugh. This would make a good story for the fires.