Page 137 of The Hunter

As the hunters searched the area, Telok kept very close to Lacey. His unease had grown into a ceaseless buzz in his belly, and crackling heat continued sparking under his hide.

He found the first mark on a nearby tree. Gouges almost a segment long and half a finger deep, left at eye level by huge claws that had penetrated the thick bark to score the reddish wood beneath.

Telok hadn’t thought the winddancers had exaggerated when they’d mentioned this prime’s size, but he was beginning to wonder if they’d understated it.

The group found two more trees marked in the same manner within forty segments of each other, one of which had a tuft of green fur, not unlike hanging moss, caught in the bark.

“We are on the beasts’ ground now. Protector, shield us,” Tas intoned. He crossed his forearms, one set above the other, and bowed his head in the sign of the Eight.

The other winddancers and a few thornskulls mimicked the gesture.

“To these beasts, all the Tangle is their ground,” Telok replied, staring into the jungle beyond the claw-marked trees. “But we will teach them otherwise.”

Wen’Xal Tas shivered. “Not this day. Sunfall approaches…”

Telok could tell the thornskulls were as torn as him. Why turn back now when they were so close? Why abandon the hunt when their prey had to be somewhere just ahead?

Yet he knew these were only a few of the marks the prime must’ve left in a territory that could well have spanned the distance between here and Kaldarak. The hunters might journey forward for days without ever finding another sign of the kurghests, much less their den.

Telok looked at Lacey. She stood with her spear at the ready, her fingers shifting around the shaft as though she couldn’t find a comfortable grip. His mate was as beautiful as always, but he did not like the fear evident in her tight lips and furrowed brow.

With everyone exceptionally quiet and wary, they journeyed back to Tovuunshai.

That night, Telok again eased Lacey’s worries with his hands, and again he denied her attempts to reciprocate. At least while she was unraveling under his touch, neither of them were weighed down by worry.

“Promise I’m gonna get you back…and then some,” she murmured before drifting to sleep.

He softly chittered. “I eagerly await that moment, my heartsthread.”

On the following day, the hunters delved beyond the prime kurghest’s boundary markers. They followed what little remained of the beast’s trail, only possible because its great size had sunk its footprints deep enough into the ground that some had survived the rain.

Quiet blanketed the Tangle like an oppressive fog. It seemed as though nothing, not even the trees, dared to make a sound that could draw the attention of the beast lurking here in the jungle’s heart. The elder hunters Telok had known would’ve considered this unnatural, unsettling quiet an ill omen. A reason to abandon the hunt and make offerings to appease the Hunter.

But Telok and his companions pushed onward. What words they exchanged were sparse, brief, and hushed, and their strides were slow and careful. The weight of the silence was matched by that of the task lying before them. With each step, that burden grew, feeding into the lump of dread in Telok’s belly.

He looked back at Lacey often, assuring himself that she was still there, still safe. Whenever their gazes met, she smiled, yet today those smiles were fast to fade and didn’t truly shine in her eyes. She was afraid, and some part of him was glad for that even as it made his hearts constrict.

Fear would keep her alert.

It wasn’t long before they came across the first remains, little more than blackening bones with shreds of tattered, rotting hide clinging to them. Scrapes and cracks left by claws and fangs marred much of the skeleton. Despite their collective years of experience, none of the hunters could come to an agreement as to what manner of beast those bones had once belonged to.

The second carcass was huge—a fully grown yatin, with only bones and hide remaining. The cavity torn in its chest was large enough to fit Lacey, Cole, and Sophia at once. Though it had been dead a good while, the area around the yatin showed signs of the struggle that had brought it down. Broken branches, trampled undergrowth, deep gouges in the ground, a sapling taller than Ayali uprooted and lying on its side with clumped dirt clinging to its exposed roots.

As the party continued onward, they found the remains of several more animals that had fallen prey to the kurghests. The stench of rot strengthened.

That smell led them to a wide depression. While the jungle floor there was free of plants, it was anything but clear.

Dozens of carcasses littered the depression, most of them picked clean of meat, atop a bed of bones.

“Holy shit,” Cole whispered from Telok’s left.

“Yeah,” Sophia agreed, stunned.

“God,” Lacey rasped from Telok’s right.

Telok raked his gaze across the surrounding jungle. This was not the kurghests’ den, but their feeding ground…which meant their den was nearby. He turned toward the humans and pressed a finger over his mouth. Once they nodded their understanding, he stalked around the edge of the depression, examining the nearby undergrowth.

In several places, the vegetation had been damaged in wide swaths, with many of the plants bearing bent and broken stems, forming paths into the deeper jungle. Likely the result of prey being dragged here.