Chapter 47 Venim
“Whoa!” the human says. “They’re… beautiful.”
She is referring to the geological phenomena looming before us, a sprawling array of chimney-like formations emerging from the surface of the planet.
Some are only a few veks high, but others are as tall as towers.
Every few sareths, one of them releases a sudden surge of glowing pink plasma spewing high into the air, accompanied by a low, almost musical roaring sound that I can feel rumbling deep within the hollows of my bones.
Though I have been through this region countless times during my long imprisonment, I have never paid attention to its aesthetic qualities, but now I can see that there is indeed something pleasing about the colored lights and resonant tones.
It only took the human to make me see it.
She is currently resting atop my right shoulder, twisting her body so she can look ahead in the direction we are traveling.
The way she is squirming is uncomfortable for me, and I imagine it must be even more so for her.
Ordinarily, I would reprimand her behavior, and perhaps supplement my harsh words with a sharp smack to her bottom.
At the moment, however, I am feeling indulgent.
I crouch and set the female down so she may better enjoy the view. She braces her hands against me as she gets her feet under her, and she gazes up at me with a mysterious expression in her sky-colored eyes.
“Um… thanks,” she says. Then she turns and studies the intermittent fountains of energy gushing up from the bowels of the planet. “So… these are the Vents, huh?”
“The Vents of Yttar.”
It’s Scythro who says it. The long-eared Hassaith has come sauntering up beside us, his blue skin snapping purple in the plasma glow.
The horned Grangorian is right behind him, ore rifle resting across one broad, green shoulder, weed-stalk burning between his lips.
He gives me a hard look as he lumbers past.
“How deep do they go?” the human asks.
“Nobody knows for sure,” Scythro answers. “Some say they go all the way down to the planet’s core.”
“Wow…”
On occasion, Pharod has used these vents as a method of execution. It has long been a matter of contention as to what happens to a body thrown inside. Do any of them ever hit the bottom before being disintegrated by a plasma surge?
I decide not to mention any of that. I do not wish to spoil the human’s enthusiasm for the place. She seems happy now. Happier than I’ve seen her.
“Well,” Scythro says, gesturing ahead as if toward an invisible doorway. “Shall we?”
He offers the human female an elbow, and she accepts it with a smile, hooking her arm through his. Together they start off toward the Vents at a walking pace. The big Grangorian trundles along beside them.
I just stand for a moment and watch them.
Mostly, I’m watching her.
Blessed Monad, she is so beautiful. Her tattered suit, which I rent and repaired, accentuates more than it conceals, showing off all the glorious curves of her feminine body. Her wide hips switch deliciously with every step, and her long hair flutters in the warm drafts coming off the vents.
My cock swells in appreciation, and my heart swells with it. She is perfect. Absolutely perfect.
She must be protected at all costs.
For the first time I can remember, I feel like I have a purpose. Not merely a mission, but a reason to be, a reason to go on living. Not so long ago, I thought Ul must be the ugliest Monad-damned planet in the universe.
I shall have to revise that assessment now that she is here.
“Venim…?”
At the sound of her voice, I lift my gaze to her face and find her looking back at me over one shapely shoulder, a sultry look in her strange, pretty eyes.
A slight arch of her eyebrow sends all the blood surging into my loins, and a tiny upward twitch of her mouth is nearly enough to make me erupt like one of the vents.
“…You coming?” she asks.
“I will be soon if you keep that up,” I mutter to myself.
I catch up to them just as one of the nearby vents lights up, sending an enormous pillar of pink fire rushing upward into the sky. The smell is smoky and somewhat sweet. An odor reminiscent of burning ore. The human recoils slightly.
“Are we, um, safe here?”
“As long as we keep our distance,” the Hassaith reassures her. “You know, the autochthons used to say if you listened closely enough, you could hear the voice of the planet speaking in the plasma.”
I roll my eyes at the whore’s nonsense, but the human seems interested, so I keep my mouth shut.
“Autochthons?” she asks.
“The ones who lived on Ul before it became a prison,” Ghorak explains through a cloud of weedsmoke. “They’re all gone now.”
“Oh,” she says with a touch of sadness. “So how does anyone know what they used to say?”
“Good question,” says Scythro. “Perhaps—”
The Hassaith comes to a sudden halt, long ears springing forward with alertness. A half-sareth later, I catch the scent of what has gotten his attention, but by then it’s already too late.
They already have us surrounded.
Inmates step from their hiding places behind the walls of the vents and advance slowly, forming a loose circle around us. They represent a wide assortment of species, and they are armed with an equally wide variety of weapons fashioned out of chitin, bone, and steel.
Great Monad, there must be at least thirty of the bastards, and I recognize every one of them. Every single ugly, snarling face.
Their leader may be the ugliest of all.
He is short and stout, with pale green skin and a broad, flat head that rests atop his shoulders with no discernible neck between. When he speaks, his voice is like bubbles in mud.
“Venim… fancy meeting you here.”
“Sleezl,” I hiss. “I thought I told you to stay at the crash site.”
“Got sick of waiting…”
Nearby, one of the vents erupts, casting his body in a lurid, pink light.
His bare skin is slick with slime, the reeking stuff he smears all over himself to protect his amphibious flesh against the dry climate of Ul.
It’s a wonder I didn’t smell him earlier, but that’s obviously why he chose to ambush us here, where the smoke from the vents would conceal his scent, and his men’s.
I say, “Pharod will be displeased to learn of your insubordination.”
“You’re one to talk, Venim.”
Sleezl reaches behind his shoulder and draws the weapon he’s been carrying there in a makeshift sheath of raw leather. As he does so, another flow of plasma bursts from one of the vents, causing pink light to gleam off the translucent crystalline blade.
My heart jolts. Sleezl smiles.
“Look familiar?”
The question is rhetorical. Of course the weapon is familiar. I forged it with my own two hands, from my own male secretions.
It is my glazeblade.
Seeing the weapon clutched in Sleezl’s webbed fingers elicits a scorch of jealousy from deep within me. My scales burn with rage as he lifts the blade in front of his face, appraising its sharp edge.
“The Thruk I pulled this thing out of was one tough bastard,” Sleezl croaks. “He flew all the way back to the crash site with this karfing thing sticking through his chest. Even managed to stay alive long enough to tell me what you did…”
He tuts.
“You’ve been a naughty boy, Venim. Slicing up your own men like that. We found the bodies back there in that crater. Nasty business, that. Nasty, nasty business.”
“I had no choice,” I growl. “They were going to betray Pharod’s orders.”
“Oh? And what exactly are you doing?”
Sleezl leans to one side, looking past my body so he can get a look at the human.
While this little conversation has been going on, Scythro, Ghorak, and I have instinctively arranged ourselves into a protective formation around the little female.
Now, as Sleezl fixes her with his hungry gaze, a second wave of jealousy surges through me, a hundred times greater than the jealousy I felt seeing my sword in his hand.
“Looks like you found yourself a concubine,” Sleezl says. “But you’re taking her in the wrong direction. Mount Bolguz is back thataway. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve gone and turned traitor.”
I say nothing.
“S’what I thought,” Sleezl chuckles. “Tell ya what… you hand that female over to us nice and easy, and I promise I’ll kill you quick and painless like.” He flashes a toothless grin. “I’ll even use your own blade.”
If I thought there was a chance he would actually take Jean back to Pharod, perhaps I would actually consider his offer.
Perhaps. But I can tell by the look in Sleezl’s beady eyes that he has no intention of doing any such thing.
He is a rapist. The brand upon his chest declares it.
He means to have her for himself. Then, when he’s done with her, he’ll turn her over to his men to keep them appeased.
Afterward, they will likely kill her and toss her body down one of the vents to cover their crime.
“Weedian,” I whisper from the corner of my mouth. “You are the biggest. Stick close to Jean and protect her. When I make my move, you start shooting. Kill as many as you can. Got it?”
He answers with an affirmative grunt.
From the other corner of my mouth, I whisper. “Hassaith. There is a knife on my hip. Take it.”
“What will you use?” he whispers back.
“My glazeblade.”
“You’ll have to retrieve it first.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Very well.”
His tail brushes lightly against my butt, searching for the knife, then finding it and curling tightly around the handle. He doesn’t draw it right away, though. He’s waiting for my signal. Good man.
Between us, the human whimpers softly.
“Is there going to be a fight?” she asks.
“Yes, little one, but we will keep you safe. I want you to stay close to Ghorak, and don’t do anything foolish.”
“But—”
“Stay close to Ghorak,” I repeat, “and don’t do anything foolish.”
The human says nothing, but I can sense a touch of defiance in her silence. I shall have to discipline her later, once this is all over. That just gives me an extra incentive to survive.
Sleezl is growing impatient. So are his men. He shouts.
“What’s it gonna be, Venim? We’re not gonna stand here all day while you make up your mind.”
“Okay,” I whisper, just loud enough for my companions to hear. “Wait for my signal…”
A sareth passes.
Another.
Sleezl opens his mouth to shout something else, but this time I can’t hear it. His words are swallowed in a violent roar as one of the nearby vents suddenly lights up the sky.