Displaced

Chapter 82

The karnak howled in pain as the club crashed into the middle leg on its left side. Though the massive pillar of muscle was easily over ten times the thickness of Akhustal's weapon, the wooden bludgeon smashed through the scales, muscles, tendons, and bone as if they were little more than brittle twigs. With all three of its legs on the left side now completely unable to bear weight, the massive beast toppled uncontrollably onto its side, thrashing and screaming. Akhustal quickly reduced her club's density to the lightest she could manage and leaped out of the way of the falling creature.

As soon as she landed, the Chos sprinted for the massive lizard's head. Around her, three other karnaks battled it out with the other Honos who'd accompanied her on this hunting mission; they'd left the biggest one for her to tackle, and she had confidence that they'd be able to take down the others, but she never liked to leave things like this to chance. The sooner she could join them, the better.

The karnak's head, over twenty paces long and ten paces wide, whipped about with dangerous force as the humongous beast thrashed. Akhustal skidded to a stop just outside of the head's range, careful not to get too close and take an incidental head butt from the injured creature. It didn't matter how strong you were, getting hit by a house of flesh would kill most anybody.

Raising her club over her head, she waited for the karnak's skull to swing back her way. As soon as it was close enough, she brought the feather-light club hurtling forward and altered its weight to the opposite end of the spectrum just before it hit scales. Now heavier than the entire karnak, the club shattered the beast's skull with ease, bringing the lizard's life to a messy end.

A rumbling, doleful gurgle behind her marked the death of a second karnak, bringing a grin to her face. Stragmans were strong.

A very short time later, Akhustal and the others stood before four massive corpses. She couldn't help but be in a good mood over the hunt's success. Each gargantuan lizard, four hundred paces long or more, could feed hundreds of thousands of people. Now all that remained was to transport the carcasses back to the main force as it worked its way ever northward.

Akhustal Palebane loved to hunt, the bigger and deadlier the creature, the better. Sadly, she rarely found the opportunity since ascending to the position of Chos. Nowadays, nearly all her hunts came during large population movements like this one. In almost every other area, migrations and the like were a major headache of logistics and organization, but in this one aspect, she loved them.

Now that the hunt had ended, Akhustal put two fingers in her mouth and let out a loud, piercing whistle, signaling to a second group that trailed far behind the hunters. Composed largely of Flegs and Shells, their job was to dismantle the massive beasts and transport them back to the rest of the populace. Her work completed, she turned and headed back ahead of them.

After several hours , the Chos and her companions rejoined the main column just as they finished setting up camp in the evening light. They welcomed her arrival with great fanfare, and she gave some perfunctory waves before breaking from the others. Shaking off several officials as she wound through the camp, she grabbed several armfuls of food and made her way towards her personal quarters.

"Caprakan, dear, I have returned," she called out as she pushed through the tent flap and entered the canvas enclosure that served as her portable home these days.

There came no response. Setting the food down on a nearby foldable table, she looked around and quickly spotted the figure of her husband sitting near their bedrolls. Even from across the tent she could see his vacant stare.

Picking up several roasted maewi flanks, she strode over to her beloved and squatted down beside him.

"Caprakan."