Chapter 8The Pack
Zuberi's reckless charge down the scree-slope broke the silverbacks' calculated siege. Hanz moved right without hesitation, raising the strange weapon that pulsed with shadow. Each sharp crack bounced against the canyon walls, amplified, bolts of shadow slammed into the beasts, staggering them, disrupting their coordination better than a spear.
Zuberi met the pack leader head-on. Spear haft collided with snapping jaws, the impact reverberating through his bones. He danced back, forcing the heavy beast with the scarred flank uphill. Its eyes burned with hateful recognition. This was personal.
"Zuberi! Two around the rock." Lisa yelled, her voice sharp with panic yet clear, cutting through the chaos. She may be out of the physical fight, but she followed the battle's flow, anticipating and foiling attacks.
He spun, trusting her warning, sweeping his spear wide. Two silverbacks leaped back, thwarted in their flanking attempt. Her instinct, raw yet crucial, had saved him.
Near the overhang, the boy stood rigid, eyes squeezed shut, small fists clenched. The nearest silverbacks hesitated, shaking their heads, unnerved. Beside him, the color-shifting creature seized this pause. Despite exhaustion and the bloody gash on its arm, it darted forward. A low hum built quickly, and a thin, shimmering beam of heat erupted from its eyes, striking a silverback squarely in the chest. The beast roared, stumbling backward, fur smoking from the blast. The creature swiftly retreated to the boy's side, their desperate partnership holding firm.
"Damn it!" Hanz cursed as his shadow-weapon clicked empty. Confusion flashed across his face. A silverback lunged at his exposed side.
"Hanz!" Lisa screamed.
Before Zuberi could move, the creature acted again. The heat-beam flashed out, striking the beast's shoulder. It wasn't a killing blow, but the pain and surprise caused it to falter, missing Hanz by inches.
Hanz stumbled back, glaring daggers at his weapon as more darkness coalesced around it. He shot the creature a wide-eyed, grateful look before resuming his shadow-fire onto the pack.
The fight descended into swirling chaos. Zuberi fought with focused intensity, his spear a flickering extension of will. Lisa's tense calls guided their movements. Hanz kept the beasts off-balance with shadow-fire. The boy and his protector stood their ground with psychic pressure and precise heat beams.
Finally, the pack leader, bleeding from a deep gash Zuberi had opened, recognized defeat. Its companions were injured, confused by the barrage of unnatural attacks or, in the case of three of its kin, lay dead. With a frustrated roar directed at Zuberi, it signaled retreat. The remaining silverbacks melted back into the shadows.
Silence fell, sudden and heavy, broken only by ragged breaths and the boy's hiccuping sobs.
Wind scraped the canyon walls, lifting dust into thin, rust-colored veils drifting over the empty battlefield. Zuberi set the spear butt against stone, drawing a ragged breath. Each heartbeat echoed in his skull.
Lisa stood a few paces away, pressing an arm to her bruised ribs. Her eyes were wide but steadier now. She stared at the boy, as if to confirm he was real, made of flesh. When he caught her gaze, Zuberi gave her an affirming nod, watching her shoulders ease in relief.
Hanz paced where the beasts had fallen—or rather, where they had been. As with the rhinoceraptor, between one breath and the next, the silverbacks corpses had vanished. His shadow-weapon hung loosely, dark smoke curling from its muzzle. He flexed his fingers, looking both elated and unsettled.
Across from the trio, the boy knelt beside the creature, hands running up and down its flank, near the gash in its side, not close enough to hurt. Up close, the child's features caught Zuberi's attention more than before. Sun-warmed skin, a myriad curls, chestnut-brown eyes. Zuberi had never seen someone whose features blended worlds so starkly. It unsettled him.
Lisa dropped off the boulder she had climbed during the fight, and made her way to Zuberi's side. "The way you moved," she said, shaking her head, "It was as if you knew what I was about to say. How?"
"I listened," Zuberi said, cleaning the spear blade against the velvety leaves of a nearby shrub. "I trusted you saw what I couldn't." He offered a faint smile. "You were right." Color rose to her cheeks.
Hanz stopped pacing, staring at his shadow-weapon, a frown creasing his brow. "No bullets," he muttered, bemused. He met Zuberi's eyes. "Think I never need ammunition again," he said.
"Then learn its limits," Zuberi said, thinking back to the way Hanz had frozen mid-fight to stare at his weapon in bewilderment. "The greatest weapon means nothing if you cannot wield it with confidence."
Zuberi tracked Lisa as she marched to where the three dead silverbacks lay earlier.
Her eyes widened. "Where did they go?"
Zuberi shook his head. "The rhinoceraptor we killed vanished too," he said.
Hanz exhaled. "Don't laugh," he said, running a hand over his face. "But this looks and sounds like a loot system in a game."
Before Zuberi could puzzle the meaning of any of the strange words Hanz had just spoken, the young boy rose, brushing dust from his knees.
He pointed to the lizard-like creature that circled him protectively, its ears low against its body, multi-colored eyes tracking the adults as they spoke. It was almost as if it understood not only the mechanics of conversation, but what was being said.
"She says it's the System," the boy said, his voice catching on every other word, the hesitation clear. "Some things belong where they fall, others get… stored for later." He paused. Longer this time, but eventually resumed. "She can't explain more than that."
Zuberi stared at the ground a moment longer. Even the syrupy blood that covered the ground was gone. In his mind, he cursed. He did not know if the silverbacks meat was edible, but he only had a single moon-fur rabbit left and doubted it would sate them all. There was nothing he could do about that, so he decided to push that problem for his future self to deal with.
He let out a short sigh, sealing his decision. "That does not matter now," he said. "These beasts are more intelligent than I am comfortable with. We don't want to be cornered in an enclosed space with so many having gotten away."
He scanned the cliffs. To the right of the wider opening, where the beasts had fled, a narrower path climbed westward, its first bend arching away from where the silverbacks had gone.
With dusk fast approaching, aware he had little information to make an informed decision, Zuberi refused to succumb to paralysis. When he glanced at the others, he noticed that all, the dog-sized creature included, looked to him to decide.
He lifted his spear. "Let's move. Lisa, stay alert. Hanz, mind the rear. You—" he nodded to the boy.
The child straightened, his big eyes, still moist from his anguish. "I'm okay. She can carry me."
The creature let out a low trill, the crest atop its head shifting through multiple hues in seconds. It lowered its shoulders. It had either heard and understood the boy or their partnership was more complex than first appeared.
Zuberi took the lead, followed by Lisa, the creature on all fours, the boy riding on its back as if on a small pony, and Hanz bringing up the rear. With a final glance at the wider path to their left, Zuberi began the ascent on the narrow path. Gravel shifted underfoot and the wind moaned through cracks in the rock. Zuberi paused at intervals, turning back to link eyes with first Lisa, then Hanz, and only resumed when he received their nod. Nothing to report. For now.
Midway up, they reached a half-collapsed ledge, and Zuberi called a halt. Bruises, half forgotten in the battle craze, now throbbed with a vengeance. He could keep going, of course, but he was a hunter, a warrior with all ten hunter trials to his name. His companions ranged from a child, an out of shape woman, and a young man so thin Mother would have dropped any task to feed him at once if she saw him. With reluctance, he called a halt. The position was not ideal to defend, but it was the best since they had left the canyon bed hours earlier.
Lisa tended a cut on her calf. Zuberi checked the boy's scraped palms gently, offered him water from his skin, then passed it to Hanz.
Hanz took a deep pull, then let out a sigh. "That thing the kid does," he said, shaking his head, "hit me like cold water—but in a good way. Kept my head clear."
The boy ducked behind his companion's frill. Zuberi placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and gave him a wide smile when their eyes met. He had felt it as well—that strange, protective field around the boy during the fight. It felt like a jolt of pure energy, invigorating him even as it seemed to repel the silverbacks. He had seen some of the beasts yelp and recoil as if struck when they got too close to the boy, like kicked puppies.