They came at dawn.
Three ships this time, not drop-ships but something new—ocean-going vessels designed for hunting in deep water. They moved fast, their hulls cutting through the waves, their decks bristling with weapons.
The tulkun had been warned. Most had fled to deeper waters, beyond the hunters' reach. But one remained—an old male, too slow to escape, too proud to run.
Kaelen watched from a hidden cove as the ships surrounded the creature. Harpoons flew. The tulkun screamed—a sound of pure agony that echoed across the water and into his soul.
"Now," he whispered.
The Metkayina attacked.
They rose from the water like spirits, swimming beneath the ships, attaching explosives to hulls, climbing aboard with knives in their teeth. The humans barely had time to react before the first ship exploded.
Kaelen rode Ash into the heart of the battle, firing arrows at the gunners, dodging return fire, screaming his rage at the sky. Seri was beside him on her own ikran—she had learned to fly in the months since coming to the ocean, and she flew now with a fury that matched his own.
The battle was chaos. Fire and water and blood and screaming. Ships burned and sank. Humans died. Metkayina died. The tulkun died—its great body floating on the surface, its eyes still open, its song silenced forever.
When it was over, Kaelen stood on the deck of a sinking ship and watched the hunters' survivors being pulled from the water. They looked terrified. Defeated. Broken.
"Kill them," a Metkayina warrior said.
"No." Kaelen's voice was flat. "Let them go. Let them tell Thorne what happened here. Let them tell him we're not afraid."
The warrior looked at him with something like respect. "You are strange, forest-walker. But you are wise."
"I'm tired," Kaelen said. "That's all. Just tired."