Page 72 of The Hunter

Lacey gasped. “You know English?”

“Shh!” He pressed his finger over his mouth again, glancing in Telok’s direction. “They’ll hear. You must come quietly.”

She shook her head, rattling around the million questions that now filled it.

She was talking to an unknown vrix, five days’ travel away from Kaldarak, who was hiding in a bush and telling her—in English—to go somewhere with him. Her stranger danger alarm was blaring, but her curiosity and shock were just as loud.

The vrix eased forward, reaching for her. “I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

Lacey drew back. “No, I⁠—”

A shriek from the larkhet rent the air.

The bush rustled as the vrix snatched up a spear that had been hidden on the ground beside him and readied it.

Lacey’s eyes rounded, and she threw up her hands. “Wait!”

Getting stabbed certainly hadn’t been on her list of things to do today.

But he wasn’t looking at her. His attention was turned to the side.

A big, powerful hand caught the back of Lacey’s vest and yanked her off the ground, making her grunt. Telok swept Lacey aside, inserting himself between her and the stranger, snarling and brandishing his own spear.

“Ven’dak zok!” the unknown vrix shouted as he held up both of his lower hands, palms out, but he did not put down his weapon.

Do not attack.

The larkhet shrieked again as it took to the air, coming at Telok with beating wings and slashing talons. But when the pale gray vrix made a sharp chirruping sound, the bird immediately altered course, flapping away to land on a nearby branch with its plumage ruffled.

“I mean no harm,” the stranger said in vrix. “I do not want to fight.”

“You threatened what is mine,” Telok growled in the same language.

His?

Despite the situation, a slow, pleased grin stretched across Lacey’s lips.

The gray vrix shook his head. “I made no threat.”

Okkor’s heavy steps crunched the brush beneath him as he hurried over. The gray vrix flicked his eyes toward the green thornskull, who came to an abrupt halt beside Telok, spear leveled at the new threat. Though the stranger was outnumbered and clearly outmatched by the much larger hunters, he remained surprisingly calm.

Lacey noticed only then that Telok’s leg hairs were standing.

“There are more of you,” Telok said. “How many?”

“More than three,” the gray vrix replied. His gaze shifted from Telok to Okkor and back again. “We will not harm you and yours if you will not harm us.”

Okkor grunted, eyeing the surrounding jungle warily. “Ours have not come to give war.”

“Neither have we. We only want to protect our Nedrayas.”

Lacey placed her hands on Telok’s hindquarters, giving him a little shake. “Telok, he knows English!”

A low, uncertain buzz sounded in his chest. In her language, he said, “He cannot know.”

“But I do know,” the gray vrix replied, his English clearer than even Ketahn’s, who’d been speaking it the longest of any vrix Lacey knew. “If you truly mean no harm, let’s talk. Ikesh’al shon vishara ikarex.”

Okkor hummed, still searching, spear still raised. He continued speaking in vrix. “If you wish to share words, come to our wild den. We will gather ours. You gather yours.”