Chapter 1 #2
Jakals on the defensive, however, were no easy targets.
The Jakals’ slender forms were made for speed, their skin smooth to the point of slickness.
They were impossible to grapple with. The wily creatures could twist and strike before you even saw them.
Discordant hisses and taunting laughter radiated from their midst as venom dripped from their fangs.
They were prepared to strike or spit the acidic compound at their attackers, and unlike Reule’s people’s paralytic, Jakal poison was fatal if the skin was punctured; and a more brutal death had yet to be invented.
Reule wasn’t overly concerned about that.
What concerned him was that the Jakals were between his Pack-mates and the prisoner in the chair.
If he hadn’t already been poisoned, the enemy might take the opportunity to do so before they could be stopped.
Since there was no known cure, this was Reule’s primary worry.
He could tell by the look in the eyes of the Jakal facing him that his enemy was well aware of it.
As a rule, Jakals were the most powerful empaths of all the known species of the wilderness; only Reule’s breed was strong enough to block them.
However, as a man of significant ability, he had learned that with strong powers of the mind came strong sensitivities.
That had been proven just that evening as he himself had been bombarded by a stranger’s overwhelming grief and been caught unawares by it.
Surely these empaths before him had heard those cries of anguish too?
He knew it was no Jakal feeling those emotions, for though they could sense every feeling any creature was capable of, they didn’t have the ability to generate such deep feeling themselves.
They certainly didn’t understand its true value.
It was a terrible irony, and it was what made them such vicious little monsters; monsters who found glee in glutting themselves on the intense emotions of others.
Like the emotions generated by torture, rape, or any number of things Reule refused to imagine lest he give way to a rage that would blot his focus and potentially feed his avaricious enemies.
This information did allow Reule an advantage.
He was the most powerful sensor of his kind, one without measure in the history of his people.
He was willing to bet these lowly gypsy Jakals had never seen his type before and would never be expecting him.
That would be his advantage, and that would save the Packmate who had fallen prey to these depraved beasts.
And to think, others considered his people the lowest of breeds.
Reule sent an emanation to his Packmates, steadying them and preparing them silently, including a reassurance to the barely conscious one in the center of the room. Then he slowly unfolded the layers of protection over his mind so he could release his concealed power.
This time he was better prepared for the anguish that struck him, but still it was bordering on all-consuming.
It was just the kind of emotional inundation that a Jakal would take gluttonous pleasure in.
He could easily amplify the already overwhelming feeling and overload his enemies with the rawness of it, but Reule dismissed the idea instantly.
There was something far too personal and innocent about the stark grief.
To feed it to the Jakals somehow felt as though it would be a betrayal.
Reule didn’t understand his reluctance, but he didn’t have time to do any soul-searching.
With a mere glance he commanded Rye, who nodded and slid closer to one of the paralyzed Jakals.
The enemy lay helpless but conscious, staring up as the hunter contemplated him with a wicked little smile that bared a fine set of fangs.
Loosing an intimidating vocalization, Rye reached over to the sheath attached to his biceps on the right and withdrew the blade slowly.
The blue metal gleam of the rubkar’s blade caught the overhead lighting and made it look even more menacing as Rye lowered himself into a crouch next to the helpless male.
There. That moment. That fear and terror in one of their own, that was what Reule caught hold of, magnified, and netted the sensitive enemy with.
His fingers curled into fists, his chin dipped down as he focused ferociously on manipulating all of them at once.
He couldn’t allow a single one the chance to further harm his kinsman.
The effect was more than he would have expected or even hoped for.
The Jakals standing in the center of the room suddenly recoiled in horror and began to scream.
They clapped bony, fingers over their skulls as males and females alike wailed to a pitch high enough to shatter glass.
Reule ignored it, pushing and pushing, refusing to let go lest they try to push back and incapacitate him with their sheer force of numbers.
As he drilled into them their compatriot’s horror of impending death and his helplessness to do anything about it, he felt as though he were stronger than he had ever been before.
He was an awesome force to contend with under any circumstances, and there was no mistaking the surge of vitalizing strength sliding into him now.
Reule kept the conduit open, from victim Jakal, to amplification within himself, and back to the small crowd of compatriot Jakals in the center of the room, pouring it out as Rye’s knife lowered to a mark.
His Packmate closed both his hands around the haft of the blade in a ritualistic manner.
Reule prepared for the death strike, knowing that he could put these bastards in a comatose state for the rest of their lives, even though there was a good deal of jeopardy to him as well if he channeled the imminent death throes.
But he felt supremely confident that he would remain only the messenger, untouched by what was about to happen.
Rye looked straight into the eyes of the Jakal whose throat lay under the tip of his razor-sharp, dual-edged blade.
With the scent of battle and impending bloodletting on him, Rye’s eyes were nearly glowing with green-yellow anticipation and his fangs pushed out both his upper and lower lips so they could be seen even without his purposeful sneer.
“Abak tu mefritt,” he hissed.
Death to my enemy. Rye spat the battle cry just before plunging deep and with so much rage-filled power that the blade went clean through and was embedded in the wood of the floor.
He left it like that and leapt to his feet before the Jakal’s blood could touch him.
He spat on his victim in obvious contempt.
Reule felt every moment of both the death and the victory, but it was the last minutes of suffering that he passed on.
He broke out in a drenching sweat, every last muscle in his taut, powerful body shuddering as he closed himself off from being dragged into the dark of oblivion along with the dying Jakal, Instead he forced himself to magnify the last pulses, the last breaths, and the last horrified thoughts of the Jakals’ kin as he drilled it all into the entire group of them.
The effect was so potent that Reule was aware of even his mentally guarded Packmates staggering back from his onslaught.
But he couldn’t gear back the intensity of it.
They would be all right, he reassured himself, so long as they weren’t his direct targets.
His direct targets, however, were not so fortunate.
Reule strove for total incapacitation, but he got much more.
All six Jakals tumbled to the floor, some landing on their knees, others flat on their backs or faces.
They all began to seize violently, clawing at their throats as though a wicked blue blade had pinned them to the floor.
Some coughed up blood, others gasped out strangled breaths.
Then, with a communal, convulsive sigh, each exhaled one last breath.
Reule felt the group of target minds shut down all at once and there was an instant whiplash effect, impacting him physically so that he fell back as if he’d been playing tug-of-war and the other team had suddenly let go.
Darcio caught him, but Reule was no lightweight, his build thick with a warrior’s muscle and his height stretching to over six feet.
Darcio was determined, however, to at least keep his Packleader from landing in an undignified heap, easing him to the floor.
The death was gone, purged from Reule’s mind with the break in his concentration, although the metallic ghost of it would cling to him for a long time to come. Darcio knelt on a single knee beside him, steadying him even though he sat, a disturbed furrow creasing his brow.
Darcio had every right to be concerned. The Pack-mates had seen Reule do some pretty amazing things over time, had even come to expect to be amazed regularly by the sheer potency of their leader’s unique power, but never had Darcio seen any one man strike such a devastating blow to an enemy at six-to-one odds.
The Jakals weren’t just comatose, they were dead.
Dead by the power of Reule’s thoughts. Darcio felt the heavy silence of the Pack, only the captive Chayne making noise as he rasped for breath.
Otherwise, the Pack guarded their thoughts from Reule.
However, because they were Pack, Reule would be aware of their collective discomfort.