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Krista considers this. She has no ideas because taking up a trade has never been a serious option for her, so she shakes her head. “I like making things, maybe fixing them. Do you have mechanics or craftsmen in your settlement?”
“Some.”
“Krista could stay with us,” Pel suggests. He quells a bit when Thon says something swiftly in Harkurian—harsh and bitten off. But Pel sets his jaw stubbornly. “San needs student. Krista needs teacher. Obvious.”
It’s Noss’s turn to say something in their language. He has a way of making the harsh syllables sound even harsher than either of the others do. Krista shrinks a bit at the irritation she hears in that tone, but Pel only snaps back in Harkurian and suddenly they’re bickering, stepping into each other’s space and gesturing with enough force to knock a grown man through a wall. Thon doesn’t stop them, but he throws his two cents in at intervals, the deep timbre of his voice dimming the others when he speaks.
This is how their attackers find them. Krista isn’t certain how it begins, only that one moment they’re alone and the next they are surrounded—no,swamped—by a whole host of strange, hooting, pot-bellied things that move a great deal quicker than their heavyset bodies suggest, dropping acrobatically from trees and charging forwards on long, muscular limbs. They are half Krista’s height, but they are wider and angrier.
Everyone leaps into action at once. Thon slaps one of the horse’s flanks and shouts something in Harkurian that must be a command to run, because the beasts surge forward as one, taking Krista and the cart with them. Out of the center of the fighting, Krista realizes, watching their attackers rip by her in a blur of snarling, wrinkled faces. It’s utter chaos—a blur of hounds and Harkurians and whatever these monsters are. Thon wades forward with an axe in each hand, swinging at the nearest creature as it shrieks and crumples, but more surge forward to take its place. These things are everywhere, dozens of them, and they keep trying to throw themselves atop the Harkurians in large numbers. Pel goes down beneath a swarm, but comes right back up again with a furious roar, slicing through mottled gray flesh with his own set of hand axes.
One of the creatures hops onto the back of the cart, curling taloned toes into the wood and dropping low over one of the deer carcasses. It bends its head to snuffle obscenely at the slender neck, then it buries its face into the muscle, squealing rapturously at whatever it discovers. It lifts its head—a quick, jerky movement—and to Krista’s horror, its lips curl back from thelongestset of teeth she has ever seen. They are crowded in there with no rhyme or reason to them, just an ugly mess of sharp points that get longer, longer, longer, the farther those lips roll back. The creature gives its jaw a small wiggle, then sinks those teeth into the deer. Flesh tears. Krista can hear sinew snapping and skin ripping as the creature jerks its head to drag the enormous chunk away. Blood flies, spattering Krista’s face, but she is completely frozen in place, knowing better than to move.
The creature tosses its head back, throwing its disgusting mouthful down its gullet without even chewing. What in the Gods’ names are all of those teeth for if these things don’t even chew their food?
The first creature notices her at about the same time as the cart lurches, dipping beneath the weight of a second comer. The first turns and screeches. The second screeches back. The first bounds over the deer carcass, simply levering its body across the cart using its arms, and closes a taloned fist around Krista’s throat, cutting off her scream before it can even make it out of her. The world blurs. There is a wrenching pain, then an impact that knocks all of the air out of her. Something heavy lands atop her before she can recover her breath, but her eyes flicker open involuntarily—when had she even closed them? The creature’s face is inches from her own, its lips just beginning to draw back. Oh Gods, oh Gods, ohGods, it’s going to do to her face what it just did to that deer. Head swimming, she rams a hand down into her satchel, feeling frantically with weakening fingers. Her vision has gone spotty, her chest will not expand, pinned flat beneath the overbearing body atop her own. Her thoughts skitter as desperately as her fingers—I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m—
One of Krista’s knuckles hits something solid. She doesn’t hesitate, twisting her hand around to grab it.Yes, her mind screams as her thumb finds the sheath and pushes it back.Yes!Krista’s arm swings, and she plunges her dagger—the Husband Carver—into the creature’s side. For all its speed and despite those terrifying teeth, its flesh parts around her blade like paper. Good to know.
Krista twists.
The sound the creature makes is horrible. Krista has no idea what these things are, but she can tell that this is not a natural cry. It’s sort of a wheezing cough, then an aborted screech. It scrabbles at the wound with its taloned fingers, drawing back with a sort of automatic caution. Air floods Krista’s screaming lungs. All she can do is open her mouth and gasp as it rushes in, one breath, then another, each one pushing the darkness a little farther away. But she isn’t safe, yet. Far from it. The cart is long gone, hurtling up the road behind its obedient horses, and Krista’s attacker is not dead yet. As she sits up, pulling her legs beneath her, the thing glowers like she betrayed it somehow.
It backs away a few steps as she stands, but it does not retreat. Krista understands why as soon as the second one slams into her from behind, knocking her forward into the muddy road. She manages to keep hold of the knife, but it hardly matters. They’re both on her now, her hands slipping uselessly in the muck.
Then, a furious roar splits the air, rattling the bones in her chest as the sound resonates inside of her, and all the weight is torn off of her. All of it at once. Krista knows without looking that it will be Thon. The others would undoubtedly defend her, but only Thon could sound that pissed off about it, and when she rolls over, sure enough, it's her Harkurian standing over her, his axes on the ground and a wriggling creature in each fist. These things are not light, Krista thinks dizzily as he slams both to the ground, snapping many bones at once by the sound of it. The bodies twitch a bit then lie still.
“Are you injured?” Thon asks, low and growly.
“Fuckingprobably,” Krista groans. Her ribs ache like shards of glass that prick at her when she breathes, but she doesn’t think they’re broken. “But I won’t die.”
The battle still rages on behind Thon, but the pace has slowed. A quick glance tells her that Pel and Noss are both still standing, covering each other as they prevent the swarm from overwhelming them.
“Stay here.” Thon whistles sharply and the hounds peel out of the fray, bringing bloody fur and lolling tongues over to Krista as their master stomps away. A quick Harkurian command draws them in close to her, their doggy carrion smell surrounding Krista as they take up their posts. But this isn’t good. If they’re here, they can’t be over there, sinking teeth into charging monsters and holding them off of the Harkurians. The hounds seem to know that, too, whining unhappily and leaning forward as though straining against invisible tethers.
“Sorry,” Krista tells them, her grip tightening on her slippery dagger as she stands in the middle of the road surrounded by four enormous dogs and zero enemies, feeling like quite the fool. She looks down at herself, muddy but unbloodied, smears of red clay streaked down her forearms and the front of her stupid, cumbersome dress. She won’t stay here if the Harkurians need her, she decides, watching keenly as the brothers cut their opponents down. Sometimes a few of the creatures will try their hand at a swarm, gathering offside and moving as one to overtake the enormous hunters. They make up for their fragility with numbers and teeth and savagery.
The brothers fight well together, keeping an eye on one another, but they’re tiring and there are only three of them. Eventually, the creatures must realize this too, because they draw back, dividing themselves into two separate groups.
“Fuck!” Noss calls something over the cacophony, but that one curse word must be the only bit of Standard that comes to him in times of stress because the rest of what he says is Harkurian. The warning doesn’t make any difference. There is nothing they can do. One group hits Noss, swarming over him like ants over a dragonfly.
The other goes for Thon.
Pel does what he can. His sharp incisors show as he goes first for Thon, slashing at some and ripping others off, but then Noss goes down, his knees buckling, and Pel must turn away. Krista sees a lot of long, yellowed teeth start to come out.
OhGodsno.
“Come on!” she snaps, and the hounds don’t speak Standard, but they know how to follow when something runs. They streak after Krista as she charges down the road, falling into the chaos and ignoring the grabby hands that try to close on her. She doesn’t stop until the point of her dagger slides into the first creature on Thon, its back presenting an easy, open target. It falls away, thrashing, and she slams the blade into another. Another.Another.
With Krista here, the hounds fall back into the fight with gusto, defending her and the brothers both as her new location allows them to follow orders and instincts.
“Go back. You are not—trained,” Thon gasps, slinging several tenacious creatures from his shoulder and bringing his boot down hard on a skull. Krista hears bone snap. Her Harkurian bleeds from multiple injuries, but his shoulder is the worst. Blood streams freely from the base of his neck, obviously where one of their attackers tried for a killing bite. It’s an ugly wound, sheeting dark red down the front of Thon’s chest, but he keeps moving despite it, bending and twisting, shaking the rest of the swarm off. Nearby, Pel helps a freshly enraged Noss do the same.
“Too late,” she gasps. “Call it on-the-job training.” Bit by bit, she’s figuring these monsters out. They have a lot of sharp edges, but they’re easily overwhelmed. She throws her entire body weight into an unbalanced one that just fell from Thon, going dagger-first and catching it in the chest before it can recover. It crumples. She whirls, looking for another.
“Take the hounds and go,” Thon demands, adding something in Harkurian that makes the dogs pause.
“Let them work!” Krista snaps back, twisting into the next pair of hands that grabs her, then coming around with the point of her blade. It slides into an eye socket. Oh, gross.
