Chapter 19
Though their group was large enough to deter most predators, Telok knew no peace as he and the others followed the winddancers through the jungle.
Every sound, every hint of motion, every subtle shift in the breeze had his eyes darting and his hearts thumping.
More than once, he thought he detected a chillingly familiar, sickly-sweet musk on the air—the smell of blood and death.
The smell of a prime kurghest. But the scent would vanish before he could tell if it had been real or a spirit come to haunt him from his memory.
He kept Lacey within arm’s reach, and his fingers itched incessantly with the urge to pick her up. Any amount of distance between them seemed too great. Even half a segment of separation could be the difference between saving her or losing her forever.
When they reached a steep patch of terrain that proved somewhat difficult for the humans, he did not hesitate to guide her up onto his hindquarters. He didn’t stop to let her down once the ground leveled out, and she made no complaint.
Having her pressed against him, holding him, was his only source of comfort, but it wasn’t enough to ease him, especially as the falling sun began to stain the sky orange.
Kurghests hunted beneath the golden sun, hunted beneath the pale moons and glittering stars, beneath empty skies and gray clouds. And the advantage after sunfall would belong to the beasts.
Lacey lightly tapped Telok’s abdomen and lifted herself up to speak in a hushed voice. “You’re quieter and more tense than usual. I mean, you’re always quiet, but this feels…different. Are you okay?”
“I am watching.”
“Watching for what?”
“Everything.”
The brush of her braided hair against his back and upper shoulder told him she was turning her head to look around. “Did you see something that has you so on guard, or was it the mention of the kurghests?”
“The kurghests.”
“Have you hunted them before?”
Telok tightened his grip on his spear as something knotted in his belly. “I did not hunt. I…was hunted.”
“Oh…” she said softly. Her hands flattened against his hide, and her arms tightened around him as she rested her chin atop his shoulder. “What happ—”
At a command from Tas, Swiftclaw sped ahead, the sound of its calls and fluttering wings fading rapidly once it was out of sight. Somewhere far off, other larkhets answered.
“Yours keep many larkhets?” asked Garahk, who walked alongside Tas.
“We do,” the winddancer replied. “They are clever and keen of eye. Though even they struggle to spot kurghests in the undergrowth, they aid our hunts and warn of other dangers we may not see.”
“Perhaps mine should keep larkhets also.”
“What my mate has not said is that if you do not tend to a larkhet’s every desire, it will allow you no peace,” Shir said, making both Garahk and her mate chitter.
“No different than broodlings,” Tas replied.
“Our broodlings have never made such sounds. Swiftclaw’s cries can pierce to bone.”
Tas chittered again and gently bumped a foreleg into Shir’s. “But they are part of our Nedrayas, and we would be less without them.”
Several larkhets made chirruping calls in the boughs overhead.
“They do not appreciate your chatter,” said Ohn.
With an amused trill, Tas pointed forward. “We have arrived.”
Telok’s eyes followed the gesture to a huge tree ahead. It appeared no different than any other tree in the jungle, with moss and vines clinging to its bark. The lower branches were large and full of leaves, obscuring his view of anything higher up.
“Arrived where?” Cole asked, looking around. “I don’t see anything.”
“Tovuunshai,” Tas replied.
“Tovuunshai…” Lacey shifted her weight atop Telok to look at Tas. “That means den place, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. Tovuunshai is wherever we keep our dens.”
Cole’s brow furrowed. “So if you make a temporary den somewhere, that’s also Tovuunshai? Doesn’t that get confusing?”
Chittering softly, Tas led them toward the base of the tree.
“Tovuunshai is where our Nedrayas dwells. If the shadowstalkers leave Takarahl, it is still called Takarahl. If the thornskulls leave Kaldarak, it is still called Kaldarak. When our Nedrayas leaves this place, it will simply be another spot in the jungle where the trees grow tall. Tovuunshai will be wherever we choose to den next.”
As the group reached the thorny brush growing thick around the base of the tree, Larkhets made warbling calls overhead. Ess and Ohn grasped some of the brush and dragged it aside to reveal an opening.
Telok stepped forward, bringing a stairway into view—a stairway all but invisible to anyone who wasn’t standing directly in front of it. A few steps backward hid the stairs from sight again. It was shielded on one side by a wall shaped of the same mossy bark that covered the tree.
“Oh, wow,” Lacey said.
“Right?” Cole moved back and forth. “Now I see it. Now I don’t. Now I see it, now I don’t.”
“Dork,” Lacey teased.
Shir chittered and motioned for them to follow. “Come.”
Tas and Shir moved up the steps while Ess and Ohn remained to the side, holding the brush. Garahk went up next, and Telok followed, with Cole and the other thornskulls behind, their legs thudding on the planks. The steps wound around the trunk as they rose.
“Well shaped and well hidden,” Garahk said with an appreciative hum. “Kaldarak’s woodshapers may have much to learn from yours.”
“I am sure there is much we may learn from yours as well,” Shir replied.
Farther back, Zesh said, “Forgive us, Ayali. These stairs were not shaped for someone of your mighty stature.”
“They are honored for you to stride upon them,” Ess hurriedly added, raising his voice to be heard.
Ayali chittered. “Not honored. Strained.”
Telok glanced back, but the curve of the stairs kept all but Cole and Okkor blocked from view.
“I am honored to be in your presence, huntress,” Zesh declared.
“Not as honored as I,” Ess countered.
Chuckling, Lacey pressed against Telok’s back and whispered, “Are they flirting with Ayali?”
His mandibles twitched, and he hummed thoughtfully. “They did seem to take great interest in her back at camp.”
Though Telok had never heard of different kinds of vrix mating, that didn’t mean there were no such pairings. He wanted Lacey as his mate, and his friends had all taken human mates for themselves. Why would it be any different for a thornskull and winddancer?
As they climbed higher, Telok caught his first glimpses of the undersides of rope bridges and wooden platforms above, though they were still too obscured by the branches to give him a true sense of the place.
At the top of the stairs, the group was stopped by a pair of winddancers standing guard. With Garahk in front of him, Telok couldn’t see the settlement beyond. The guards sounded equally curious and wary, speaking with Tas and Shir in hushed voices, and seemed reluctant to allow entry.
“They are here as my guests,” Shir finally said, her tone firm yet gentle. “We must assemble the council to meet with these guests so we may share words with them as the voice of the Nedrayas.”
“As you say, Shir,” one of the guards replied hesitantly.
The group moved forward. Standing to either side of the walkway, the guards—a male and a female—stared in awe as Garahk strode past them. Their attention shifted to Telok next, and their eyes widened.
Fear sparked in the male’s gaze, and he subtly shifted his spear toward Telok as he took a step back. But when his eyes fell upon Lacey, still perched on Telok’s hindquarters, his grip on the weapon slackened.
“Another human?” he rasped.
The female guard shook her head. “There are two.”
Telok looked over his shoulder as Lacey withdrew a hand from his abdomen, lifting it in a wave.
“Hello!” she said brightly.
Behind them, Cole grinned and notched his chin in the guards’ direction. “Sup?”
“Sup?” the male repeated with his head canted.
Once again, the female guard shook her head, simply watching as Cole continued by.
The platform opened into a wider space, where the group had room to gather.
Shir touched her headcrest to Tas’s. “I will go ahead, my luveen, and gather the others.”
Tas cupped the back of his mate’s head and trilled as they rubbed headcrests. “I will see you soon, my heartssong. Though soon is never soon enough.”
Shir released a soft purr as she withdrew. After straightening and bowing her head to the others, she strode off along a bridge to the right.
Lacey slipped down from Telok’s hindquarters, and they joined Garahk at the railing, turning their gazes toward the village.
“It’s so much like Kaldarak,” she said.
Telok nodded. Much like the thornskulls, the winddancers had built platforms up in the trees, with intricate bridges made of sturdy silk rope connecting them. All the structures upon those platforms were built against the trunks, with some being open to the air beneath their leaf roofs.
Winddancers occupied those spaces, and though Telok couldn’t see into all of them, he recognized the looms within one. But few, if any, of the winddancers seemed to be working. Most were staring at the newcomers in quiet startlement.
Higher up, dens large and small crafted of interwoven sticks, vines, and silk hung from the boughs, each secured by many thick strands. They were shaped like drops of water hanging from the wood.
Just like the den Ketahn kept in the Tangle.
Cole pointed up at them. “What are those?”
“They look like bird nests,” Lacey said.
“Must be some big fucking birds…”
Tas chittered. “They are our dens. The birds nest higher.”
Telok lifted his gaze. Several colorful larkhets were visible in the upper branches around the village’s outskirts, many of them roosting in nests of twigs and grass. He did not doubt there were more of them out of sight.
Ayali chittered. “I would not fit in such small dens.”
The other thornskulls chittered with her.
“I do not think I could make the climb,” Koss said.
Droztar scratched his abdomen with a lower hand. “I would fall.”
Cole laughed. “If I want to test my upper body strength, I think I’ll do it a little closer to the ground.”