The Recruit: Part Four

Here's Part Four of the ongoing short story that's a companion to Draxis (WIP).

This one comes with a major TRIGGER WARNING!

This snippet involves a life-or-death situation with hunting beasts of prey and somewhat graphic descriptions of the struggle. If you are a sensitive reader in regards to animals (even monstrous predators who love to eat humans) then please don't read on.  

If you prefer to read the entire story to date, including this installment, please click here:

The Recruit (All Parts Posted to Date)

Otherwise, here's a brief refresher from the last post:

From Part III:

It crept up on the recruit from the forest gloom. I knew from experience it would launch without warning from heavy-muscled haunches and twist its head mid-flight, driving upper and lower saber-toothed fangs into the recruits back, crushing or severing his spine. Then, he would lay paralyzed as the beast began to feed and the rest of the pack closed in to tear him apart.

This recruit would pay the price of overconfidence, and Gallin would have his prize. But more than that, a burden would be lifted from my shoulders and a threat eliminated. I might yet see my ninth season.

 _________________________

 The Recruit: Part IV

So why this troubling feeling I was not in the right? The Duumarrakhan was doomed to die anyway. What did it matter how and when?

Because there was something about the man…

“At your back,” I wolfed, but he was already in motion.

The man bounded sideways the moment the farratora lunged, planted a foot on a massive trunk as he drew Gallin’s prize from its scabbard. He kicked off the tree, inverted horizontally over the surprised predator, and drove his blade down through the beast’s opposite shoulder. Gravity pulled the man back to the ground, and the embedded sword sliced down diagonally like a paper blade, severing the beast’s spine. The farratora collapsed in a heap and lay still, pike-like fangs still bared. It was a mammoth male, probably the pack alpha.

I rose to my feet, heart-pounding. Farratora forgotten.

I knew I had just witnessed something few alive had seen. The kill of a Duumarrakhan.

And I was not going to see my ninth season.

A chorus of growls in the darkness confirmed that thought. The dead alpha’s pack was preparing to charge.

I drew my blade and used the tree to thwart a rear ambush. From my peripheral, I saw the recruit edging in my direction. His artful blade pierced deep through the eye of one large male, dropping him. He stepped to the side, blade humming low, to severe the legs of a smaller, charging female. She tumbled head-over-tail with a look of confusion when her stride shifted to missing paws.

From out of the blackness to my right came a flash of fang in flame-red jowls as the first of many rushed me. Four more came behind him. Big pack of them! I couldn’t fight them all with a mere sword. I reached for my belt, glanced at the recruit, then hit the pulse button. The four dropped from the shock wave, and I finished them off before they recovered.

The recruit fell to his knees, hit by the fringes of the concentrated energy ring, and knew what I had done. Shock weapon—cursed and taboo. A religious abomination. If he was a Duumarrakhan, and a farratora didn’t finish him first, I was dead. He’d never let me live after committing such an atrocity. He didn’t yet understand the rules. Most Tahila Death Rangers were capital criminals already, and breaking religious laws to survive was of little matter.

My moment of distraction allowed a farratora to reach me. He made one pass, raking his claws down my sword arm, before turning back to finish me. I hit the button at my belt again as I shifted the sword to my offhand and ran him through where he fell.

The recruit had dodged out of the range of the energy ring, but then he was beside me, scowling down at my belt. Blood flowed down my arm, and my head was spinning. The wound was bad. In a moment, I’d lose consciousness, and the recruit would finish me. Beheading was the price for my crime—by guillotine or blade.

He didn’t have a guillotine handy. His sword would do.

To be continued...