THE REALM

Chapter Thirteen

One year later

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Splat!!!

  I heard the gob of saliva fall and I knew that the mouth of the monster had opened. I ducked out of my hiding spot at the knowledge that my location had been found out. A screeching wail of great magnitude erupted as I broke cover.

  I heard a sound like thunder clouds clapping in a storm as the huge jaws bit through the tree I had been hiding behind. It was after me then with a ponderous stumble of heavy steps even as it wailed out its avarice to kill me.

  I ducked into a tight grove of Avarno trees and the fallen order beast howled in rage and began to smash its way ponderously through the soft pulped and closely grown trees. The trees were slowing it down, which gave me the time I needed to make it to the clearing. This was so much easier when things went according to plan, such a blessing was rare so I always planned accordingly for the chance of things going wrong.

  I broke free of the rain forest and out onto the lush grass of the valley's main grazing pasture. I was a powerful runner and my life of surviving and fighting had made my body hard. I had the scars and enough near-death experiences to prove it too. The high order animals busy grazing on the lush grass of the valley picked up their heads in alarm as a wail of aggression broke out from the forest behind me.

  The fallen order beast was clear of the Avarno trees and would be after me swiftly now. Faster than I could run.

  Okay, which one was it going to be, I contemplated to myself, as I ran straight toward a group of three horned Tricans. Kuri had taught me many things, one of which was that some of the high order beasts could still be communicated with. I cried out my need from within and for a moment the herd of giant three horned beasts came to a standstill.

  They blinked their large eyes at me out of their heavy armor plated skulls and then I saw their gazes shift to the forest edge behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see one of the fallen order kinds explode out of the heavy vegetation on its two massive rear legs as its short upper arms grasped the air in their eagerness to get a grip on me.

  I glanced ahead as all the high order beasts of the plain began to run. It would be a short day for me if all my available rides ran off and left me here.

  A young female Trican surged free of the pack of stampeding prey animals and headed straight for me. It was a brave move and one for which I was supremely grateful. To face the threat, coming up fast behind me, alone meant certain death for her, yet she was coming full on as the herd forsook her and headed off down the valley.

  To the herd there was no overcoming the beast behind me without greater numbers and so, listening to their fear, they gave flight, but there were still special ones like the big female before me that still listened to directions given to them by man.

  Kuri had told me that all the animals had once been so responsive to the dictates of man and had even spoken in a common tongue, but that ability had been lost at some point in the distant past. The Tricans could still detect dire emotional context though and one had listened and heeded my cry for help.

  It appeared she would run right over top of me for a moment, but at the last moment her great head dipped downward and I vaulted upwards to land standing on her lower horn, with my body poised between her two upper horns. Great chunks of sod went flying through the air as the young female in her prime peeled off to the left in a desperate lunge to avoid a head on course with what was behind me.

  The change of course successfully made the Trican beneath me begin to put forth the greatest effort of her life. I looked up and over her raised protective neck frill of sinew and bone to see slavering death just behind us.

  I vaulted upward to stand on her upper horns and then I flipped over her neck frill to land on her neck. Looking up, I saw that the fallen order beast was gaining on us. It seemed unnatural to me how it could be faster than the beast I rode, which had the benefit of four legs and less overall bulk.

  The fallen order beast may be faster, but it would not eat us this day. It was the last of its kind and I intended to see it die just as all the others had over the past year. I had nothing against predators in general, but this fallen kind Kuri had marked for slaughter as it was nothing but a mouth that knew only endless hunger and was never satiated, but killed for the joy of killing.

  I pulled my bow off my back. It was a powerful bow and the muscles of my arm stood out in stark relief as I fitted an arrow shaft to it and let it fly. The arrow sped true and launched deeply into the gut of the beast all the way up to the feathers of my fletching.

  The pain the beast experienced drove it to new heights of hatred for me and I called out in my mind to the big female beneath me to change course. Obediently she surged off to the left side in a display of several tons of weight in action, even as the fallen beast's teeth raked furrows through the dirt where we had just been.

  I let loose with another arrow and caught it in the neck. These things were hard to bring down and this last one of its fallen kind was putting up quite the fight as if it knew what was at stake. It dove at us again, and again at my direction the big female Trican dodged off to the side as I put arrow after arrow into our pursuer.

  Suddenly the chase was over and I was shocked by it. Badly bleeding the fallen order beast completely broke off pursuit and headed as fast as it could go towards the open mouth of the valley where the valley opened up into the arid wastelands that surrounded the Holy Mountains.

  Never before had I seen such behavior from one of this kind. When they attacked there was no let up until it or its victim was dead.

  I didn't give it much of a chance in terms of survival, as my arrows had found their mark, the evidence left behind in a trail awash with blood. There was so much blood that I marveled that it still had the strength to run. Again, there was just something unnatural in the moment.

  I calmed the beast I rode as it was still in full flight and slowly she came to a stop, her sides heaving hard as she took in great gulps of air. Then I asked the impossible of her and she listened to me. Turning, she began to follow after the hunter of us both at an easy lope that shook the ground.