《Jiharu: A Story of The Hunt》


 Chapter 1

    The chase was on.


    Perhaps it was too soon. Guff had been clumsy and scraped hard against a stone still fifty feet from their prey. The scratching of scales cut through the still air like a snapping twig; the little group of levin had jumped from their foraging as one and seemed to stare straight through their hiding places. A moment more and the slender she-levin were trotting off into the dry brush of the valley beyond, their tails raised in alert, baskets of berries forgotten. The four men stood in a line facing them, guarding the retreat. The levin had been doing that for moons now, it was said, no matter where the elders ventured out to hunt.


    It was young Venn who took action. The ambush had failed; it would be slim pickings today, or none if they were slow. He burst from the bushes on the near side of the clearing, and the spines on his long, hardened back clacked urgently. Guff took the hint and bustled out behind him. ¡°Let¡¯s get ¡®em!¡± Venn roared. He closed the distance as fast as his stubby claws could carry him.


    They were halfway across the open meadow when they crashed to an uncertain halt beside one of the harvested shrubs. The levin hadn¡¯t moved. There they stood, solid in their tiny line, paws raised in the air. In those paws, heavy rocks gleamed in the fiery sun.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t they running?¡± Guff hissed. His heavy-lashed eyes fluttered in confusion. Predator and prey faced off across the open grassland like statues. It was hard to tell which was which.


    Instinct was returning to Venn. From the combined weight of a thousand ancestral hunts, he knew they were too deep into the open now. They had to press on. ¡°Never mind. Charge!¡±


    The Instincts had guided them well, though their ancestors had never faced something like this. They scrabbled up to speed, but the levin stood firm. Paws swung back, beady black eyes locked on the aggressors. The air whistled with stones. One hit Venn hard on his plated back, tearing off a spine. He howled in pain and slowed to a stagger, but his brother of the hunt galloped on. Another volley, a stinging rain against their snouts, and then the paws were empty, and the distance was closed. The focused, once-defiant eyes widened in dismay. Levin scattered to left and right, nimble as mice. The momentum of their attackers was too great to react, and they plunged headlong into the empty gap between, but their bond was strong, and they turned in unison towards the scampering target to their side. They had isolated him, a big, juicy grey haired rodent wrapped in strings of carved nutshells, and the end was nigh. Guff could almost taste the meagre shred of fatless meat that would soon be between his teeth. Saliva drooled from his exposed gums.Stolen story; please report.


    The levin was clever; that was undeniable. He bobbed and weaved, but any gain he made was soon eaten up by the huge swinging strides of his pursuers. He ducked expertly between two leaning branches of a green sapling on the slope of the valley, but the giants ploughed through behind with a single sickening crack. He feigned left and hopped right over a chasm in the rocky crag underpaw, and found himself surrounded by tottering rocks. The two reptiles hissed with joy and hunger as they sidled up, near exhaustion. It had been close, their energy almost spent, but persistence and bravery had paid off.


    The levin, now greasy and panting, rounded on the beasts, fumbled at a leaf tucked into his nutstring belt, and brandished a sheaf of strange markings in their general direction. His paws and voice shook with fear. ¡°We are protected,¡± he gasped in broken and halting Skernish. Venn and Guff froze, amazed. ¡°Protected by the union. This c-c-certificate proves it. We cannot be harmed. You are compelled to stand down!¡±


    Guff opened his jaws. The levin threw the leaf by his immense claws. ¡°Stand down!¡± Guff hesitated. Never had the hunted uttered the words of his people. He turned his head to Venn. Venn snorted at the leaf. It blew over against a rock, exposing a crude diamond etched upon its rear.


    When they looked up, their prey had long departed.

 Chapter 2

    The walk from the rocky valley somewhere south of the Endless Meadow took more than a day, so drained were they from their desperate charge. For that entire walk, not a single word passed between them.


    This summer was incredibly dry. They stopped by the muddy basin of an oasis to gulp down their fill, then, because their failure had left them hungry, they dug out some fireworms from the bank. The meat was rubbery and bland. It was not the way their first levin hunt should have ended.


    It hadn¡¯t all been so bad. They had had little successes, here and there. Within their first hour they had caught one gatherer unawares, back turned, as they had tried that last time. Yesterday, just before the charge, they had cornered a lone wanderer against a riverbank and tore him to strips, though Guff had taken his sharpened twig to the foreleg. But those were slim pickings for a pair of young and eager skern.


    What they had seen troubled them. They were no more than a year, but they hatched ready for the hunt, and that year had been spent only in training and exercise. They fed from the pile of strips of levin and cussock-meat that the larger skern brought for the youngsters, and they listened in the burrows after dark to tales of the glory days that had only just ended. They knew that the world was changing.


    A levin hunt should be about savagery and energy. Finesse, too, had always been required for the long, fat reptilians to creep to a suitable ambush point, to a point where their stubby legs could propel them into the heart of their prey before they could scatter. But the elders remembered the years when the hunt was all about how many they could consume. Not if they could catch the levin at all.


    Venn and Guff had ranged south well beyond the burrows¡¯ usual stalking grounds. And they had witnessed the difference for themselves. The Endless Meadow was strewn with wide, smooth lines of pebbles where the levin could move rapidly and easily, and where a skern would quickly find their claws slipping painfully from underneath their bulk. And the furred ones moved together, not in straggling forage-groups of twos and threes, but close-knit packs. Some gathered and munched the berries on their favoured plants. Others simply stood and watched, or crouched unobserved under dried grass, ready to squeak a signal when their eternal foes approached.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    And the guards had ways to hurt.


    By the time they reached the burrow, on the gritty sand bank by the nameless marsh where they had hatched, Venn and Guff were sore from their wounds. They bypassed their kin and slithered down into the cool mud to heal. A long time they wallowed, rolling away when the nipping flies drew too close, and the sun was setting when Guff spoke. ¡°We have to tell the master.¡±


    Venn grunted in response. It was going to be as painful as the stones.


    Reluctantly, they sloshed out of the marsh and up the bank. There were few skern to be seen, because it was egg-laying season again, and their females were all deeper into the marsh, where the secret pit protected next year¡¯s brood. But the ones that were left, basking in the last rays of sun, turned watchfully and hissed as they passed.


    ¡°You should not have gone,¡± said Vunn, the old hunter, as they neared the master¡¯s burrow.


    ¡°Has there been an attack?¡± Venn questioned. It was known that the levin had turned the tide west across the marsh last full moon. An organised band of the mouse-men had crept at night into the depression where the burrow had lain for centuries, and scrabbled at the baked walls with stone tools until it collapsed. Most of the skern raked their way out, but were forced to flee beneath a hail of twigs and rocks. The old clan was broken and divided.


    ¡°No,¡± Vunn replied. ¡°But the master had not given a blessing.¡±


    Venn and Guff carried on miserably. There was a reason they had ventured so far from their territory. The master had not granted them leave for their first hunt. Conditions had been deemed too dangerous. Only the very experienced had clashed with the levin for endless days.


    They should not have gone, but the hunger for fresh meat had been too strong. And now, though they cringed from the master¡¯s entrance, they were forced to report what had happened.


    The situation was worse than he thought.


    

 Chapter 3

    Only three of the weather-worn burrows on the bank were left standing. The mounds of four more marked the peak of their savage existence, when meat was more plentiful and all had fled from the terror of the skern.


    Inside the master¡¯s burrow, however, time had not passed.


    It was a cavernous space that descended into the sandy earth for thirty lengths. The skern had no taste for ornamentation, only the flesh of their victims, but the skulls and claw-scratched records embedded into the walls served to recall the fearsome career of their burrow-master. The later records, deeper within, glimmered with dyed shells, tiny shattered spears, and elaborate bunches of feathers of the many levin chiefs who had fallen before his might. If any skernish burrow was to thrive in scorn of their prey¡¯s development, Venn thought in awe, it would be this one. They were surely safe in the shadow of one so grand.


    The cavern had to be big. The master Skrenn was half as long again as Rukk and Gann the elders, and they were at least a hundred years old. He lay at the very rear of the expanse, unmarked by crown or raiment. The averted eyes of the others who shared his home were enough to show who was king.


    Venn and Guff wriggled on their bellies through his dusty floor, begging forgiveness. Skrenn¡¯s one visible eye regarded them coolly.


    ¡°You have returned,¡± he rumbled. The others along the hall dared a glance.


    ¡°We have returned,¡± Venn agreed. He felt tiny amongst these titans, those who would have obliterated the pathetic pack they had struggled so clumsily against yesterday.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°Why?¡± The master¡¯s voice was ice.


    Guff trembled in the sand. Venn was more prepared. ¡°Because we have realised our mistake. We are unworthy of the hunting grounds. The levin are too strong for weaklings such as ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Idiot weaklings,¡± Guff stammered.


    ¡°And we have discovered something terrible.¡± Venn knew they must hurry things along to their information. Perhaps warning of this new development would ease their punishment. ¡°The prey we encountered. They spoke to us about a union. Not in mewls and squeaks. In our own speech.¡±


    He had expected some support, or at least surprise from the master¡¯s burrow-mates. They watched silently, cautiously. Eyes flicked to their master.


    ¡°And we found this.¡± Venn reached slowly to the smaller spines on his chest. The leaf, its etchings barely visible in the darkness, fluttered to the floor. Skrenn dipped his enormous head towards it and eyed the diamond for a long time.


    Then, he lumbered to his feet. The others shrank back into their alcoves along the tunnel. He rose until the blades upon his battle-notched back scraped the roof. Chalky dust rained down into the youngsters¡¯ eyes.


    Skrenn loomed over them and parted his jaws. His yellow teeth blazed inches from Guff¡¯s snout, then Venn¡¯s. ¡°It is known,¡± he boomed. ¡°You think my laws are for nothing?¡± He stepped back, returned to the place he had spent the past fifty thousand nights. ¡°Never again shall you disobey me.¡± He let one claw slip outwards towards his kin with a bone-wrenching crack. ¡°Never again.¡±

 Chapter 4

    Days later. How many they did not know. The skern do not measure such trivial lengths of time.


    Guff had noticed something bad. Very bad. Every morning he and Venn slithered from their burrow with the other yearlings, warmed themselves in the first sun atop the smooth rocks at the summit of the hill just to the east, and then they came back down to the meat pile to feast.


    At first, there was plenty to go round. Soon they had tussled for the last of the levin.


    Now only a wretched heap of cussock scraps remained.


    There were no trials of strength any more, no fierce tussles to divide the best spoils. Now Akkh, one of the master¡¯s monstrous burrow mates, slept with a paw upon the drying flesh. One piece a morning for all.


    It was not the way of the skern.


    ¡°No more levin hunts,¡± Venn mused. They were lying in wait at the mouth of the little brook that emptied into the marsh a short walk down the bank. Sometimes, if they were quick, they could snap up the odd mudfish as they strove for their breeding grounds in the soggy reeds beyond.


    ¡°Until master allows,¡± muttered Guff. ¡°They have to start again.¡±


    ¡°Not us,¡± said Venn. ¡°The others too. The seasoned hunters.¡±


    Guff was silent. It was true. The older skern were sliding out mainly west now, towards the creaking mangroves on the deeper side of the marsh. That was the domain of the cussocks, and it was only their gnarled, bony carcasses that lay now upon the drying field. Cussock meat was tough and meagre, nothing like the sweet morsels from the mouse-men. Yet that was not the most concerning part.


    ¡°How can we prove ourselves against tree-rats?¡± Guff snapped. His spines bristled angrily. Cussocks were slow and stupid. Once spotted, there was nothing they could do to shelter from the might of the skern. There was no honour in their killing. And honour is what they would need, come next year, when the females would return to gift their precious batch of eggs to the most skilled of hunters as selected by master Skrenn.


    Venn lunged. The mudfish he had traced down the current from beneath the saplings upstream wriggled away from his jaws and moved ever closer to fulfilling its quest. The skern snorted a foghorn boom from his nostrils, and looked outwards into the marsh. He wondered what the females were eating out there.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°Our egg-kin cannot prove themselves either,¡± he pointed out.


    ¡°But we cannot surpass the elders,¡± Guff retorted. ¡°The passing of strength has halted.¡± He hesitated. ¡°Our whole life has halted.¡±


    They regarded the bank solemnly. It seemed to have grown eyes. They felt the power of the levin ready to roll down upon them, encircle them in slippery borders, hem them in with spears, lead them to scratching a living off rats forever more.


    But that is not the way of the skern.


    ¡°Have you ever wondered who your egg-father is?¡± Guff said suddenly. ¡°Your egg-mother?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Venn pawed lazily at a passing sliver of silver in the water. He peeked at his friend from the corner of his eye. ¡°But after our performance in the first hunt, I don¡¯t think I¡¯m of the master.¡±


    They hissed laughter. Then, Guff grew serious again. ¡°What I mean is, whoever they are, they¡¯re hunters. And their egg-fathers and egg-fathers before them. Not scavengers of those beneath us. Real fighters, who took what they wanted and scattered the mice before them. You¡¯ve seen their conquests on the walls of the master¡¯s burrow. What have we got to show for ourselves? We¡¯re slow and lazy. No wonder the levin are gathering.¡±


    Venn was giving him a curious look. His tail wagged slowly in the gravel. Guff snorted. ¡°We can¡¯t do this, can we Venn?¡±


    ¡°Master says to wait,¡± he replied dubiously. ¡°We can never, ever disobey again.¡± They both knew what would happen if they did.


    Guff pressed closer. ¡°Don¡¯t you feel it, friend? The hunger.¡± Venn did. It had seeped into his limbs like a quivering, maddening heat. His teeth dripped saliva.


    ¡°We¡¯d be exiles,¡± he said. ¡°Never to return to our clan.¡± But now he understood that the heat he had longed to hide beneath Skrenn¡¯s warning had woken, an ancient ancestral hunger that could not be ignored, and the heat could only be doused in mouse-blood.


    He felt his ancestors¡¯ anger too. Levin were meat, and nothing else. Certainly not equal foes. His claws dug into the bank. Perhaps Master Skrenn was becoming docile, overcautious. They had to be put in their place before it was too late.


    He saw movement from the stream. This time, he did not think. With a great thrash of energy, Venn plunged his muzzle into the depths and plucked the mudfish from its path. The thrill of the hunt throbbed in his bones.

 Chapter 5

    They circled the burrow deep within the marsh, where their stout legs could still just reach the slime beneath the festering pools. It would not do to be caught disobeying again.


    Once they were beyond the reach of the master, though, it felt good to be out hunting again. The skern take little time to reflect. Now they had escaped, now a choice had been made, they could turn to matters of flesh and battle. They were exiles, and that was that.


    The dry, golden scrub that was more familiar to their clan rolled out beyond the marsh¡¯s last tendrils of water before them. They looked along the valleys uncertainly and kept low. ¡°The elders may still patrol here,¡± Guff said quietly. ¡°We could be brought back.¡± To their rightful fate.


    Venn looked out across the bushes to his left. They rustled fretfully, stirred by the burning, scented breeze or hunters¡¯ spines he did not know. ¡°Then let us pass by the Corner Column and into the Green.¡± It was a risk. The protruding sandstone marker just visible above the foliage showed the edge of their clan¡¯s territory. If the clan of the Green did not take them for exiles, then they could be shredded for pursuing their shared prey across land that wasn¡¯t theirs. But those skern had not been sighted for many moons. It would be a landscape unknown to them, but also a landscape their elders feared.


    The two hunters turned and slunk by the towering column. Sandstone hillocks rose on all sides out of the shrubbery. Shadows grew thick in the secret crags and crannies between. But no hunter leapt from those shadows as they wriggled from tuffet to tuffet, listening for long periods between. All was silence.


    It was not silent for long. A few moments beyond the point where the baked mud turned to soft moss beneath their bellies, Guff halted. Venn pushed his maw through the screen of saplings they had been skirting and focused. From somewhere up ahead, there came the weakling squeaks of the levin.


    ¡°Do we hunt?¡± Guff hissed. He was still peering back at the strange stony landmarks that flanked their way.


    Venn considered. They were beyond the laws of the clans now. ¡°What else are we here for? Go on!¡±


    The wind was blowing in great, long gusts, and it was easy to time their advance to the rattling of branches and grass. Venn could smell them now. It was a sweet, beautiful smell, vital in a way dried cussock strips could never be.


    Guff glimpsed a huddle of fur ahead and tapped his tail lightly. They drew together beside a small clearing in the shrubs. They strained to pick out targets in the glare of the sun, but the levin were too close together. Another charge it would be.


    The ambush was successful. The chase was not. Venn and Guff¡¯s deep roars turned to snarls of rage as they clattered into the clearing. This time, the levin had been caught completely unawares, and they burst from their huddle in a dozen directions, shaking and terrified. One even fell heavily from the crest of a tumble of rocks by the scrub¡¯s edge and lay limply for a while in the moss, squealing and shrieking, until its brothers and sisters came to drag it away. But the skerns¡¯ anger was aimless and unfocused. They whirled and scrabbled, tearing up the earth with hunters¡¯ claws, snapping at hindlegs, thrashing at tails, and catching nothing. Anger had rendered them impotent.


    The levin had been preparing a feast of nuts and leaves. Sacks of their forage lay torn and scattered all over the clearing now. What so many had been doing in the heart of the Green to warrant such a gathering was not clear. But whatever it had been, they had been doing it in the great hollowed out bowl of a skern burrow. Toiled earth trickled down its crumbled walls. Tiny cloaks and smoothed seed-shell bowls and ceremonial polished wooden rods, the plunder of centuries, lay broken about its edge. Larger rods had been erected around it, and the intruders had pulled an intricate sheet of woven grass across one half to grant respite against the beating sun.


    Venn stalked about its margins, ravenous and wild with fury. ¡°¡¯Tis a vile land, this Green, where filthy mouse-men can sit dining on the ruins of our kin.¡± He crushed a seed bowl easily beneath one scaled pad. Skern knives, the sharpened fallen spines of the griffletree some elderly hunters took to strapping onto themselves, tumbled out in a shattered pile. He roared his anger again. ¡°I should never have brought us here, friend.¡± They had known of the attacks across the marsh, but to see the fall of their rivals for themselves was too much.


    Guff nosed through the disturbed mound. ¡°No bones. Did the mice do this? Could they really best the clan of the Green?¡± Then he fell silent. However it had transpired, the skern had forsaken this place.


    Venn stared at the ruins and took sudden comfort. ¡°It is but one burrow. The clan of the Green are mighty indeed. This was just a hunting lodge, surely.¡±


    ¡°But who now is the hunted?¡± Guff spat.


    They regarded the scene as the sun dipped towards the west. Without speaking, they purged the skernish place of the evil foods of the prey and returned the loot neatly to what was left of the burrow. The rage that had begun with the first sight of the sorry feast had not simmered down. It was boiling up within.


    Venn stalked the perimeter of the clearing, looking up at the sandstone formations. ¡°From which way did we come?¡± he pressed. ¡°It is time to return to other lands.¡±


    ¡°From that way,¡± Guff said at once, flicking his tail towards the smaller hillocks. ¡°And so we go opposite. It is time for revenge. For is that not why we left, brother?¡±


    Venn plunged into the bushes. It was just the answer he was waiting for.


    The sun fell as they walked, and with it, their spirits. The desire for revenge was high, but no means presented itself. A few times, they smelled mouse-meat and closed in, only to become entangled in unseen threads which caused strange pods above to boom and crack when pulled. Whenever they got to the cave or grass nest where the levin had been resting, they were long gone.


    Then, the sentries began to appear. Deep in the Green they were now, scraping through plants they had never seen before, and smelling more things that remained unseen. There were fruits aplenty adorning the whispering branches above, in greens and golds and purples, and these were the treasures of their prey. So it could be gleaned from the flat pebble roads that broke their path often, and caches of drying stores left beneath leaves on polished wooden scaffolds. All of it now within the layered shadows of the twisting rocks that clustered in this unknown world, and beheld by the levin atop them.


    They did not run in fear as the two intruders set about the stores with their claws. Only watched.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    At first, Venn was pleased to have witnesses to his meagre vengeance. He growled happily up at the mouse-men, so awfully out of reach, but so trapped by the horrors he wreaked upon their work. Onwards they pressed, spying and sniffing out the fruit and their enclosures wherever they could and pounding them into mush and dust, as had been done unto their kin.


    In a forking chasm between two outcrops, however, the sentries moved.


    There was one atop each tower, looking down on them as they passed. The shrubs here were too low and too thick with moving berries to hide, and besides, they hadn¡¯t seen a levin on the ground for hours. Guff had muttered suspicions about secret symbols passing from the guards to direct their harvesters to safety, and Venn reluctantly agreed. They had to get out into a more even hunting ground, where they weren¡¯t so obvious. That was why they were in the chasm, squeezing past the powdery walls towards an area beyond where the cursed rocks seemed to be thinning.


    But when the levin above raised a foreleg, he shook the earth beneath their feet.


    It took them a while to collect what was happening. Stones rained down upon their backs, hard enough to crack spines. They scurried beneath a thicker bush and waited until it was over. When the dust cleared, one of their paths had disappeared. ¡°Like a mudslide but with rocks,¡± Guff snorted. ¡°They must be cutting off the way to their herd.¡±


    Venn scrabbled forward angrily. One of his greatest thorns atop his shoulder lay discarded by the shrub. It would never regrow. ¡°And yet their foragings smell strongest upon the way left.¡± He glanced up, but the scouts had gone. ¡°We¡¯ll find a way to get to them. They can¡¯t keep us away for long; there¡¯s not enough valleys like this. And when we find them, we will feast.¡±


    Slowly, they strode forward. Venn was right; if anything, the scent of fruit was even stronger here.


    They crossed a gently rising lawn of flowers towards the better cover beyond. From the slight height, they could see more of the landscape before them. The greenery went on, but they were through the worst of the towers the levin used to avoid them. ¡°Do you think they live in the rocks?¡± Guff ventured.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. The ones ahead cannot.¡± Venn had had enough of this dreadful place. They had caused some chaos in the levin-farms, but a true reckoning, a resetting of the scales to the right way of the world, could only be exacted by teeth. ¡°Let¡¯s get beyond these rocks. I smell a river ahead. We can stop for mudfish at least.¡±


    Onwards. The smell of fruit grew ever more pungent, and yet they still did not see it. ¡°Be silent,¡± Venn hissed. ¡°We might surprise them.¡± He could just imagine the mice now, backs bent, eyes on their supper only, raking through the next bushes arrogantly, their confidence in their cheating eyes high above complacent and unfounded against the raw power of the skern.


    There was another rumble, and another. The ground shook again. Two of the ways out had gone. ¡°Hurry,¡± said Venn. ¡°They are escaping. Into the valley!¡±


    The sickly haze throttled the air as they sniffed for its heart.


    A wide, shallow gorge ran down towards the river on the other side of the incline. The other paths had been reduced to rubble by the little creatures that perched safe on their watchtowers. They sensed their prize slipping away when they had come so close.


    A crack, a rolling stone, and a deafening roar. Guff pulled Venn beneath the overhanging wall of the gorge just as a flurry of rocks plunged into the path behind. It was only when they were forced from their alcove by the crumbling earth above that they saw a similar dam in front.


    ¡°What trickery be this?¡± Guff grated to the echoing enclosure. ¡°You cannot avoid us forever! You cannot-¡±


    Levin poured over the banks and into the gorge.


    The skern whirled in the dust. The mouse-men were everywhere, and all at once. The stonefall had hemmed the hunters in, and the levin were quicker. Venn was snapping at anything that moved, but when he tried to lift his legs and bowl the foul creatures away, he found his limbs too heavy. They were doing something to him and suddenly he was scared. The scent of fruit was overbearing, and he smelt no prey, and then he realised the scent was there to deceive him. To mask their approach.


    He looked over to Guff and hissed as the levin descended upon his friend. He managed to crush one up against the cliff as it jabbed at Guff''s eyes with something long, but then Guff was on his back, rolling desperately, and now Venn could see the woven threads that bound him. Bound them.


    He hadn''t released the jabber''s bones from its pelt like he wanted to. It tottered back to its feet, and looked at the two groups of its kin, surrounding the powerless skern, and twittered in its squeaky tongue.


    "Izin mikrin?" It sounded like a question, even Venn could tell. Guff was still and silent on his back.


    "Init mikrin. Mikrin virli vuin." The squeaking was coming from above them. The levin that weren''t holding bundles of threads close looked away from their quarry, saw the one who replied, and relaxed their twig spears. Venn fought against the biting twine in his neck and raised his head.


    There was another group looking down on them. The one in the middle was clad in a shawl of gleaming nutshells.


    "Virli rek? Ner rennin pa ra mikrin."


    The shawled one scrambled down the bank, nimble as the wind. Guff sensed the distraction of his captors and struggled to be free. A sharp spear deep into the exposed flesh of his belly rendered him still once more.


    The clad levin was angry. He was approaching Guff, waving his forepaws. ¡°My maro mikrin! Verelo arkin? Na!¡± The captors backed away slightly.


    Venn struggled to speak. His mouth tumbled around the word. It came out like the feeble cough of the sick.


    The shawled one was jabbering away still. Spears poised inches from Guff. Finally, Venn managed to spit out the foreign word. ¡°Mrrrrk... mikrin! Mikrin!¡±


    All eyes turned to him. Some looked startled.


    ¡°M-murk-mikrin!¡±


    He felt his bonds slacken. The mouse-man in nutshells was striding towards him purposefully. It addressed him and him alone. ¡°Maru mikrin?¡±


    ¡°Mikrin! Mikrin! Mikrin!¡±


    The new levin waved. His kin scrambled to loosen the twines around the skern.


    Venn waited until they were completely bundled away before he lunged and tore the face from the leader.


    There were wails and screams. Spears raced at him from all sides. Most clattered harmlessly from his scales, broken and twisted. Dozens of levin flurried up the walls. The scratching of their tiny claws rippled about the confines of the gorge.


    ¡°Guff!¡±


    Venn barrelled through the billow of fur towards his friend. But Guff was already rolling and struggling to his feet. Venn didn¡¯t stop, only pushed him onward. The ambushers parted before them like sheaves of grass as the skern breached the wall ahead and on towards the river. It was only a levin trap, a pathetic wall of debris no match for the hunters, once surprise had gone.


    Yet they knew they did not advance. They fled.

 Chapter 6

    Guff¡¯s wounds were deep. The spears had pierced the thinner hide beneath. Gouts of black blood marked their trail to the riverbank where they now rested. They would make fine trophy scars when they had their revenge.


    But would they? It was the second time in days they had been forced to contemplate their position. But this was no fight for their freedom any more.


    It was a fight for existence.


    ¡°The master of the Green surely escaped,¡± said Venn. ¡°We need to find some way of summoning all the elders of all the clans. We need a wave hunt.¡± The older ones remembered the wave hunts, where prey had become so plentiful that the skern of different burrows marched together to trap as many as they could for more frugal seasons. And when they¡¯d finally come to their senses in the gorge, whole hordes of levin were still no match for two yearlings. Whatever the mouse-men were capable of, it could still be stopped.


    Guff groaned. Venn took no notice. If he had got this far, he would recover.


    ¡°We were made to hunt them. It has never been different. Nor will it ever be.¡± But he didn¡¯t sound sure, and that roused Guff from his semi-consciousness.


    ¡°What of us? Exiles... in unknown land....hungry and wounded. Hunted.¡±


    The word stung Venn. ¡°No. We hunt.¡± And he went stalking off down the river to collect cullerpedes.


    By the time he returned, Guff was already better. He¡¯d propped himself up on a warm stone, and eagerly snapped up the crispy flesh of the creatures Venn brought back for him. And with fresh physical strength came memory.


    ¡°When... in the valley. We were dead. How... you release us?¡±


    Venn had been sitting in awe of what had transpired as soon as he could be sure the ambush party had not followed them away from the stone towers. He now had the disguise of fruit to check for as well as their stinking pelts.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t. Not really. The shelled one did it.¡±


    Guff grinned, a long line of razor teeth against the sand. ¡°But you commanded it! I remember now.¡±


    Venn blinked his denial. ¡°I found a pattern. That word it said over and over. Mikrin.¡± He said it slyly, but they both knew it was a last resort.


    ¡°And it was afraid! They ran then. You saved us.¡±


    Venn stayed silent. If that was what Guff wanted to believe, then so be it. But the reality was, even then, the balance lay with the levin. It chose to free them.


    Guff was babbling on. He would never admit to being relieved, but they were lucky to be alive. ¡°And so that¡¯s how we take up the hunt again. We speak! Show them that there is no use in resistance. It is their place to lay down and die, like it¡¯s always been.¡±


    But Venn was troubled. ¡°You mean to stoop to their level?¡± In truth, he had used the word in desperation and shame. Better, he had thought, that they had died with honour. Deception and trickery were not their weapons, but the shields of prey.


    ¡°I mean to use what we can against them, as they do to us,¡± Guff replied quickly. ¡°We listen, and learn.¡±


    Listen, and learn. Venn paused. It was one of their first lessons from the free-hunters. Observe and prepare. So would they follow the laws of the hunt. He flashed teeth. ¡°But first, friend, we rest.¡±


    He was at best unsure by the proposition as they raked out a makeshift hollow in the soft earth of the bank that night. But by the next morning, he felt lighter of tail.


    There was a balance to it, at least. Already, the levin had used their tongue to avoid death, as was their goal. What better way, then, to rise to dominance by doing the opposite? They were not doing the same, but pushing back, the same scale of life and death that had always bound the two kinds together.


    And a hunter, it was known, had only measure of honour in the end. The meat of crawling, slippery morsels could not sustain them for long.


    ¡°Do you think you killed a great leader?¡± Guff mused as they paddled across the river. Soon, that awful land would be out of sight. ¡°We may have struck a terrible blow against their pretensions today.¡±


    Venn thought not, by what they had seen. But that was not the measure, was it?


    At long last, he had killed again. And soon, so soon, they would taste.

 Chapter 7

    It was that word again. Jiharu. They had heard it countless times in the ruins. Now, it was time to find out what it meant.


    They had found the perfect place, the perfect moment. There were a dozen or so levin, none too many, and they were away from their rock paths where other travellers could warn them to danger. Even better, they were here to extend that path, and that meant more whiskers to the ground. Only one or two sentries cast their tiny eyes over the plateau while the rest laboured with their stones and pebbles. The skern had waited long for their enemy to pin themselves within this foolish corner of the outcrop. They knew they would, for here, there were many old walls and tumbledown turrets, long-forgotten remnants of a mighty fortress. The race that built it were equally forgotten, but Venn didn¡¯t care much for that. All that mattered to him was that the defences provided perfect cover for a pair of skernish attackers to creep upon their informants.


    They had found the seed-pod alarm where they had thought to, against the very corner of the closest existing path. Below, where the ground dropped away, there were other furred shapes, pouring water on bushes and rolling groaning tubs of berries along the paths, but they were out of earshot. They knew from experience.


    When Venn sounded the pod and the ears of the sentries pricked to attention, he was way off to the east, crouching within the buckling core of a fallen tower. He let go of the plundered twine and watched as they raised their spears, watched as they looped round towards the sound, watched as the workers jolted and plunged straight into the trap.


    Guff was there, at the edge of the plateau where the unarmed flurried. He had been there for some time, in a rough Guff-sized burrow they had prepared last moon. His spines were pinned with dried leaves, concealing his presence, and now they scattered in clouds of red and yellow as he leapt from his hide. The scent of fruit choked the plateau like noxious fumes, camouflage raked from a raided store down the hill last night. No wonder the builders had not detected the iron stench of their rightful kings.


    Guff¡¯s proximity sent the mouse-men wild with panic. One toppled from the edge of the rock and fell to its cowardly end with a fading squeal. Others wheeled about and pounded for the decaying watchtower at the centre of the ruin. Three spun on their heels and doubled back straight into the leviathan bulk of Venn.


    Times had changed for the exiles.


    Venn had long reconciled himself to using slyness against slyness. No matter the way, the skern were predators, and in the end, predators always prevail. He felt like a predator now as he smashed a foreleg into the lead mouse and crushed it into the ground. One claw, the size of a scythe to the trembling levin, curled around its neck.


    The builders, and the sentries with them, scattered and were gone. To fight back would have been guaranteed death.


    Was Venn¡¯s prize guaranteed death? Of course. That was its place, but perhaps it would not know it.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    ¡°What Jiharu?¡± Venn spat in halting levinese. They had watched and listened from secret hollows for so long, but only with the patience a gaunt and shrivelling stomach can conjure. ¡°Where? A farm? A roadway? Big?¡±


    The levin did not speak, only cried.


    Guff came up from above and grinned. It was a slow grin, and it revealed the full length of his fangs in agonising detail. ¡°Say,¡± he said, slowly.


    The levin wept. It thrashed its head, looking for aid, or a way out, but found neither. It began to wipe its face frantically with its paws.


    Venn revelled in his dominance. He was almost disappointed when it began to babble.


    ¡°Jiharu... it¡¯s our home. Where we came from. Let me go back! I have family-¡±


    ¡°A tower?¡± Venn roared. Spittle drenched the levin into silence. Guff, still hanging mockingly above the captive, extended a claw towards the one erect watchtower. They had learned the word verik, the leftover doings of whatever clan had lived here before them. They dotted the hillsides of this sprawling, verdant jungle they had descended into from the Green, where they had stayed and spied. They heard it often, and followed, and discovered the stores of twigs and planks hidden in rotten trunks and collapsed skern burrows, and witnessed the work parties drag them up their cobbled paths to seal the gaping holes in the towers with new walls. The mouse-men lit fires up there freely at night. Once repaired, there was no way in for their hunters.


    The levin thrashed its head gain. ¡°No-ooo! Please, free me or end me. Please...¡±


    Venn adjusted his grip and felt bone give way. One of the vermin¡¯s forepaws mushed into the loamy ground. It screamed. ¡°I¡¯ll tell!¡±


    Balance was restored. He wanted this moment to last forever.


    ¡°Jiharu... it is not... verik. It is our own...¡± Eyelids fluttered. The weakling was fading.


    Guff rattled the creature up and down. ¡°Say!¡± he shrieked. ¡°Where?¡±


    ¡°D-d-down the roadway. East to the copse of the Fiery Grove. Along the river to the sss-stone bridge...¡± And then, it smiled into the waiting maw. ¡°It¡¯s the heart of the union, the spring from which peace floods the land. I want you...both to see.... what could be.... before you die.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t looking at Venn any more. It was looking over his flank.


    ¡°Away!¡± boomed Guff.


    Instinct told Venn not to look, but to act. He left the beast where it lay bleeding and squirmed away through the vines.


    A second later, flame scorched his tail as the dragon engulfed the levin in annihilation.


    A minute, and the plateau was blackened to a crisp.

 Chapter 8

    Venn and Guff had lain in the mud beneath the outcrop for hours before they noticed the watchtower. Some of the weaker walls had crumbled into nothing at the touch of the dragon¡¯s breath, but the tower still stood, rings of green foliage stubbornly holding on around its perimeter. Nevertheless, a dull red glow emanated from its peak, and a curious brown smoke arose from within.


    ¡°It¡¯s avoiding it,¡± Guff hissed. They wriggled deeper into the moss and dirt as the enormous creature soared and circled overhead.


    ¡°Summoned by the smoke,¡± Venn replied. ¡°Some of the mouse-men retreated that way.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not saying...¡±


    ¡°Yes. It must be in league with the enemy.¡±


    It would explain why, after hundreds of years, the winged reptile spanning the sky (which could only be a dragon, from conversations with the elders) had returned to lands bordering their own. The levin had always skulked everywhere across the plains and scrub, yet in these past moons Venn and Guff had sensed a direction never told of in the master¡¯s burrow back home. An expansion, an invasion, of organised effort. Paths and farms and destruction of their kind spreading from the vile heart. Jiharu.


    And now, the inhabitants of that heart were cooperating with an even fouler species.


    So it was that the young skern found the balance tipping once more. They had been ill-judged to declare themselves reclaimers of the old glory. Hours ago, they were the titans of the land. Now, they cowered in fear once again.


    There was nothing to do, though, than obey the way to survival. At long last, the dragon seemed satisfied that nothing outside the watchtower could have escaped the plateau alive. It circuited the outcrop once more and flapped away westward with great strokes of its leather wings. When the shadow passed across their hiding place, each skern pretended not to see their companion duck.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get out of this place,¡± Guff urged. ¡°Before they bring it back. Or another.¡±Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Slowly, they edged away from the eyes of the fortress. It was out of sight before they had realised they were creeping deeper into the levin¡¯s homeland. Roads criss-crossed the land like the close scratches of a set of claws. The thick plants of the jungle had been cut back into narrow strips marking out borders of the fruit plantations amid which the mouse-men toiled. Most of their way, the skern¡¯s route was dictated by what little cover they could find between these corridors and the neat wooden berry silos that interspersed the orchards.


    No birds sang. Venn looked upon it all and knew it had not always been this way.


    But where else would they go?


    Guff finally said it when they had paused beneath a mighty gnarled gubtree to let a platoon of spearmice pass down the road mere feet to their right. ¡°Can we stop them, friend?¡±


    Venn considered. This was a show of power he had never expected. They had changed the very landscape as far as the eye could see. But they were still just tiny lumps of stinking fur for all that. He thought of master Skrenn¡¯s yellow teeth as he had loomed over them. Each was as big as those sacks of meat.


    ¡°We can,¡± he concluded. ¡°And perhaps only us. For only we have seen the levin for what they could become. Leave them to take a tower here, lay a farm there, and the clans will not see the danger until it is too late. Some are already gone.¡± That was now too clear to not accept. But equally clear now was the way to tip the balance for good. ¡°But we have seen their weakness as well. We know how they rely on those shelled ones, telling them what to do. They are not independent like the skern, bound only by a will to dominate. Apart, they can only flee before our strength. And there is one place, we know, that tells them all these unnatural things.¡±


    ¡°Jiharu,¡± Guff said simply. ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking. That dragon was not just trying to kill us.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± said Venn. ¡°It could have had my tail at least. But first it wanted to take our captive.¡±


    Guff was getting excited. The levin were gone, and they crept on down the strip of forest. Eastwards. The shining eyes of a dozen beasts, fugitives from the dull farms that had replaced their home, gazed down mournfully on them as they passed. ¡°Most important to them was us not finding the way. To Jiharu.¡±


    Venn paused and extended his stubby neck. Further east, beyond the works of his enemy, a flash of red burst from the horizon. The Fiery Grove.


    ¡°But they were too late.¡±

 Chapter 9

    When they got to the Fiery Grove, the skern stopped to rest. It had taken a long time to get there, far longer than reaching somewhere you could see should take. Perhaps they were weak, Guff thought.


    But no. If anything, they had proven themselves once again. The sky was dotted with dragons now, circling the farms and boarded-up ruins on a hunt of their own. They hadn¡¯t been there before. They were almost certainly looking for the pair of exiles after the raid on the plateau.


    ¡°Take heed and be satisfied,¡± Venn had reassured him as they had scraped half-underneath a mighty tub of berries to allow one of the giants of the air to pass. ¡°It means they see us as a danger.¡± Guff hadn¡¯t felt like a danger as they skulked about the earthworks of their prey. Skulking was for levin and cussocks. Yet, the fact that they had made it to this copper copse unseen at all, crossing busy roadways where the undergrowth was broken completely and sliding through their clutter whilst parties foraged a mere twenty tails away, showed they could turn the tables to sneak up on anything, even the king of Jiharu.


    At least, he thought so.


    The Fiery Grove was a pleasant surprise. The mouse-men had left the ground beneath the towering trees unmolested, and no destroyer set paw there. Perhaps they appreciated the beauty of a little patch of nature to remind themselves of where they had come from. For Venn and Guff, it was just good to feel under cover and in control again with the tools they knew how to use.


    For one, they were hungry. Their blood ran cold, and they need not eat for days, but the energy of the last few had drained them. They stalked off gladly about the stands of ferns, taking advantage of the shadows of the greater plants and pouncing upon unsuspecting prey. Guff took down a blue deer as it paused to drink by a puddle. Venn only managed one of the babies as they ran squealing from their mother¡¯s demise. But there was enough for now, and as they tore up the flesh, they were content. Over his larger prize, Guff teased his friend about how he would have to use his new-found creeping powers to hide from all the females when they returned, if they were to see hunts like his today. The goal of all his kin was so ingrained that for a moment he had completely forgotten they were clanless exiles in a foreign land.


    ¡°I wonder if the hunters still sit on our bank,¡± Venn mused. Surely the meat pile had run dry by now, even with that awful rationing. ¡°They cannot sustain themselves on mudworms for long.¡± He thought of Guff and himself then. The deer was tasty and filling, yet somehow, he felt empty still. There was something more to levin-meat than mere flesh. He wondered if they could go on much longer without revealing themselves. The fire of the hunt was throbbing in his limbs once again. Perhaps it had never gone, only briefly satiated by the ending of the few cowards that had gotten too close, but even now he had actually ate of them little. He looked on across the never-ending farms eagerly, straining for Jiharu. The idea of leader-meat, sweetened by idleness as they told others to enact their follies, seemed to spread to Guff too as they gazed out, and it made them burn.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    They wallowed in the ferns for two nights, digesting their meals and recovering their strength. Then, they crept out eastward under a blazing sun that made the leaves of the grove smoulder like fire. The levin were still there, toiling in the orchards, but there were fewer dragons to dodge now. Perhaps they had thought they had scared the skern away. Underestimating them would be this union¡¯s downfall.


    The air grew drier as they walked, more like the exiles¡¯ homeland. It made the going easier. Also easier was the slight downhill slope they found beneath their claws. Guff remembered their captive¡¯s brief words and shivered with delight. ¡°Down we go, into a valley, and what do we seek? A river and bridge,¡± he hissed. ¡°We¡¯re almost there.¡±


    They were. The sun had not appeared to fall at all before they saw the line of dark green ahead, and midway along it, an arch of rock. ¡°It¡¯s like the driftwood bridge downriver from the Thorn Bog they used at home, only... permanent,¡± Venn observed. He looked suspiciously at the towers that lined the path down to the structure. There was no old brickwork there, only full wood. ¡°This may serve our kind and ourselves. We pick out a place for a new burrow nearby, and we hunt and hunt and hunt until the foul heart of this pretentious place is plucked out. Maybe we can spread the word of the ample pickings here, summon youngling females, and rule this valley with an iron claw. Venn and Guff, clan masters. And a whole land of levin, living complacently in the open, in terror beneath us.¡±


    ¡°What about home?¡± Guff said hesitantly. ¡°If we stop the raids, won¡¯t they take us back?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± said Venn, ¡°and why would we need them? The fields run with more prey here than ever walked upon the Endless Meadow in all time.¡±


    ¡°And the dragons?¡± ventured Guff.


    ¡°The dragons,¡± hissed Venn, ¡°are temporary. Like us, they seek only power for themselves. Do you think they will stay to defend their pathetic allies once they see them falling, and the offerings of whatever they desire running dry?¡±


    Emboldened, they looped round to the bridge. But for all their ambition, they gave the watchtowers a wide berth.

 Chapter 10

    At first, when they reached Jiharu, they did not see it. The bridge rose sharply above a wide, slow river lined with trees and lilies. Birds twittered happily in the sun all along the banks. The only sign of mouse-men was the little wooden guard-posts on either end of the span itself, but they had descended to the side of it within the foliage to look up unseen. The bridge was of the forgotten ones, Venn observed with pleasure. The levin would never reach such might.


    Then Guff roared with dismay. Venn turned and beheld Jiharu.


    It was a long way off, but it filled his vision. Just ahead, the river opened into a titanic lake, so vast waves were forming in the mild breeze of the afternoon and crashing to shore. There must have been an island within it, but it could not be seen, because Jiharu had engulfed it all. There were no remnants, no verik. Tiers and towers and shelves and shelters and castles of new wood burst from its roots, jumbling the horizon with a myriad of turrets and spires. Upon platforms in its corners, dragons brooded. Into the flat facade of an enormous keep facing them there had been etched the diamond they had first seen on a crumpled leaf far from here.


    It was a city the likes of which the ancient ones had only dreamt of. And it belonged to the levin.


    I want you both to see what could be, before you die.


    Venn had no words of praise. ¡°An abomination, to forsake the giving earth and live in the sky! They have gone too far. They have challenged nature itself, the winds and rains and soil, and now they reach for the sun. When they get there, it will all burn.¡± He hissed, a long, steaming drone of disgust, as he tore his eyes from the lake.


    Guff wasn¡¯t listening, and he stayed rooted to the bank. ¡°Then we will have to wait for the sun to punish them. Look around it!¡±


    Venn turned back. There were tiny dots of wood in the shallows about the city. As he watched, even smaller shapes scurried and bobbed upon its surface. Could it be that levin drifted free on the waters on those planks?Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Finally, he understood. The bridge was a relic from the past, bank to bank. None spanned to the city.


    Jiharu was alone in the middle of a lake.


    The skern could not swim.


    It was the ultimate defence. The ultimate insult. Venn lay down in the grass and raged.


    Guff looked longer. There had to be a way. They had not come this far for a strip of depthless water to defeat them. In the end, though, he too lay down in the grass.


    They stayed upon the bank, in silence, until the sun glared red and the stone bridge cast its shadow upon them. They hadn¡¯t moved in hours, not even when a dragon passed directly above on its way out of Jiharu. All day long, the rafts bobbed to and fro across the glistening waters. Guff observed carefully, his heart racing. But they were much too small to support even one hunter. And even if they did, how would they reach the city upon one? They would be completely defenceless against the dragon sentries that forever waited upon its walls.


    It could not be reached.


    ¡°Perhaps-¡± began Guff.


    ¡°We go north.¡± Venn was up on his feet at once. Guff had thought him drifting into sleep, but he seemed alert. And determined.


    ¡°North?¡±


    Venn had raised his head as high as he could manage. His tail swished restlessly in the silky grass. At last, he made out the white tip of the mountain on the horizon. ¡°Remember Siff¡¯s tales?¡±


    All they had learned of their legacy and traditions they had learned from Siff the hunter. And as hatchlings, in the dreary safety of their burrow, they had heard of what lay beyond in the wide world and longed for the day of the first hunt. But the thing they were in awe of most had lived upon that solitary peak, visible even from home. It was said that even the elders feared a day it would decide to descend and enjoy the bounties of the meadow for itself.


    ¡°No...¡± said Guff.


    ¡°Yes,¡± said Venn.


    They had fought deception with deception, speech with speech. Now, it was time to fight dragon with dragon.

 Chapter 11

    For once, they could take comfort in their wariness. If the elders were frightened of the mountain, then they could be too.


    Past the northern shore of the lake, there were no levin. Everything they had worked to destroy and to create had been westwards, eastwards, southwards. Anywhere but closer to the mountain. Guff was not convinced by their reasoning. Surely mouse-men were far too meagre to attract attention from the beast they had sought. A pair of yearling skern would only make half a mouthful.


    Still, their cowardice had its advantages. The land rolled out from the lake green and free. No spies had perched atop the strewn boulders to call down the fire of dragons upon them. And the dens of less intelligent animals had been left wild and unseen. Food was plentiful there.


    It didn¡¯t seem to matter much when you were looking into the ice-blue eyes of the monster before them.


    They had found his cave easily by the churned earth of his landing points, and the icicles that hung incongruently from the trickling moss of its roof. Further on, the ground grew frosty and crackly underclaw. The skern felt heat, the vital energy of life drawn from that morning¡¯s sunrise, spilling away uselessly into the rock. They knew they would have to be quick or forever stay in this miserable place.


    Guff thought they might be staying here forever anyway.


    The dragon was young, as far as dragons go. It had seemed asleep in its dark pool at the centre of the white cavern, but it had been listening to their ponderous approach for hours. When they entered the final chamber, it had reared its pointed head, fixed them with its paralysing eyes, and blew angry jets of snow into the air about them.


    It hadn¡¯t spoken, and neither had they.


    Venn was growing sleepy in the cold. They must act.


    ¡°We come in peace,¡± he said, in their own tongue, for dragons know all tongues of all the life forms below them.


    The dragon was silent for a long time. When Guff was beginning to think it really was asleep, it spoke. ¡°There is no peace.¡± Its voice was low and whispering, yet he felt the icy blast of its breath freeze his spines all the same.


    ¡°It is true. Your brothers have forsaken you,¡± Venn went on, and Guff jolted and shuddered beside him, for it seemed a terrible thing to say to this colossus that could swallow them without a second thought. Alguan was a reject of his kind, an abhorrence born in the wrong age. The world was cold, a dark and still darkening age for the kings of reptiles who had ruled all in eras past. Where his own generation and dozens before him warmed their lairs with fire, he was fit only to chill.


    When Guff dared to look back at Alguan, he knew Venn had struck home. There was a sadness, a loneliness in those eyes, he saw now. ¡°Once, your kind befouled these slopes and the plains before it. And then I fled my homeland, and now they skulk here no longer. Yet here you are. So I say to you, so your brothers have forsaken you also.¡±


    The dragon¡¯s perception was like a knife. It had stricken Guff utterly dumb. But Venn had the bond he had hoped to forge.


    ¡°And now also our prey rise up to insult us. They have joined in vile union with your kin. We want to put them in their place.¡±The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    The dragon smirked knowingly. ¡°And now you seek to do the same.¡±


    Venn shook off his fear and stepped forward. They were dead anyway, if Alguan chose. ¡°We are skern. We pay homage to nothing. We are the lords of the hunt. And in that hunt, we will use whatever weapons necessary to kill. You could be one of those weapons.¡±


    To Guff, they passed a century in silence.


    Finally, Alguan stirred. His mighty head dipped towards the little reptile. ¡°No union, then. But a brief partnership. I have watched my fellows pass into your lands, dabbling in the dealings of the weak. Very well; if you seek to cause them pain, I may not make a meal of you yet. What is it you seek?¡±


    This was the risk. This journey, this last chance to lay waste to their foes, rested upon a murmured word days from their hatching, a bedtime tale drowned in the buzzing of flies deep in the festering marsh of their childhood. ¡°It is said you can turn water to earth.¡±


    When Alguan rocked back, Guff turned and slithered for the cave¡¯s mouth, for surely the beast meant to strike. But the snorts of gently billowing snow were laughter, seasoned by age and matured by dominance. ¡°In a manner,¡± was all he said, but the pool was crystallising around him, hardening in sheets upon his scales, and Guff¡¯s fear turned to wonder, and then to understanding. ¡°You can get us there!¡± he roared. ¡°To Jiharu.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± said Alguan, and the skern took no notice of the glimmer in his eye until he spoke again.


    ¡°But, of course, at a price.¡± The cave seemed to darken further. ¡°You will reach this city of the furred ones, and you will die there.¡± He said it with such grim certainty that Venn¡¯s legs buckled beneath him and he sank to the icy stone. Life dripped away into the hungry cold. ¡°But if I am wrong, if you find a way, you must repay me. You cannot much harm my enemies, and neither can I, without the turn of the Season. They will have taken it with them, to guard the Age of Fire, and they will do all they can to preserve it. But, just like your levin, they are upsetting the balance. The world calls out for a new age, where the workers of ice and frost will sit atop the Horned Mountains and the practitioners of flame shall cower in the hovels where they belong. I am no accident. I am a harbinger. It is time, I will use any weapons I can, and you will be my weapon.¡± He shifted forward, and the cracking of the ice rent the hollow air about them. ¡°So you would find the Season, which has been coveted and stolen away from the temple, and you shall thwart its guardians, and you shall return it to me. If you do not perish as I have foreseen.¡±


    A moment later, they were out in the open. The sky was grey with cloud, but they relished the weak warmth upon their scales as they would a summer noon. The rustle of dark leaves, the inviting depths of the bountiful woods, the cry of a pinerat, were all near. The blasphemous towers of Jiharu were long ago, far away on the horizon.


    ¡°Our way awaits,¡± said Venn as they lay in the soft flowers by a thin stream. ¡°The ambush is set. Yet if we feast and save the clan that no longer wants us, we are destined to go to war with the kings of the sky itself, take the artifact that they hold most dear, and deliver unto a temporary ally who will bring about a mysterious change to the world as we know it, all for his own gain. To walk this path, we merely go down to the water and stride into the stronghold of a thousand or more hateful enemies with sticks and stones and fire, the same enemies who nearly ended us with a mere two-dozen warriors and a cunning trap in that valley. That way, our demise has been predicted twice. What say you?¡±


    Guff rolled over in his bed of leaves. The sun beat pleasantly upon his soft belly and spear-scarred armour. ¡°I say that if we are to resign ourselves to cussock and fireworm, we may as well go back and let the master take us. Sometimes, I can barely remember our burrow now. But what I do remember is master¡¯s burrow, and the trophies on his walls, and let me say one thing...¡± He rolled to his feet and inclined his head to his friend. ¡°Those things weren¡¯t cussock or fireworm.¡± He shoved Venn to his feet with his snout and set off from whence they came.


    ¡°We said we were going for a hunt. Now let¡¯s hunt.¡±

 Chapter 12

    Guff stepped into the shallows and the hunt was on.


    He turned back to his friend. Venn was waiting on the bank. His green hide was barely visible beneath the strips of bark and chunks of driftwood pinned flat against his skin by his spines. Just another filthy mouse-man tactic to use against them, he had said the first time, thinking of the shelled one back in the Green. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Guff hissed anxiously.


    Venn smiled. ¡°Just soaking up a last few rays. We don¡¯t know how long this will go on for.¡± He sloshed into the water by his companion¡¯s side. Jiharu lay in front of them, towering and imposing and overwhelming but unsuspecting. ¡°Just remember, we have moons, seasons, years to make it fall if we have to. We need to keep trace of the way out.¡±


    Guff shook his maw. ¡°No, we kill and kill until there¡¯s none left. We only have one chance to get here before the dragons learn our surprise. Once we¡¯re inside, they can¡¯t touch us. It needs to be a massacre.¡± He had prepared for that by sharpening his claws and pointing his teeth against the pebbles this morning. They were going to be overworked.


    ¡°It¡¯s too big. We might get lost. We need to play the long-¡±


    ¡°Now!¡± shrieked Guff.


    A huge shadow swept the bank. Something grey and hulking shot by them like a hawk. Alguan had been watching and waiting. First was his end of the pact.


    They charged into the water, splashing and thrashing their tails for balance. They felt a wind above. The flash and brilliant white of winter. Then they were rising from the depths upon wings of ice. Sheets of cold earth raced out before them. They plunged on. The dragon¡¯s breath buckled beneath them but held.


    Venn looked ahead. There was a bridge across the lake. A slippery and cold bridge, with fathoms of watery death close on either side. But there was no going back now.


    They ran on to Jiharu, and as they went, the bloodlust took them. There would be no retreat now, Venn knew. Only blood and mouse-meat and victory.


    The ice-sheet endured before them, but the frost dragon was gone. It was then that they saw the dazzling plume of light off to the left. Black shapes hung in the sun, clawing and screeching. More detached from the balconies and towers of the city and rowed through the air towards the battle. Alguan was outnumbered twenty to one at least. But it was not their concern. He had drawn the powers of the air from their narrow bridge, and all their focus was now on reaching its end.


    They passed rafts of wailing levin on each side. One boat had been caught in the icy blast, and stiff corpses and berries lay mixed on the ice in front. Venn wove through the wreckage and revelled in the bloody puddle about a sailor pierced by his own mast. The first blood had been spilled, the first life taken in vengeance. There would be many more.


    They were almost at the city now. The blank wooden facade of the outermost keep loomed off to their right. Ahead and left, there were the spires they had seen from shore, but now they could see the channels that lay between, streets lined with smaller shelters and stalls of wooden casks. It stretched back as far as the eye could see. Everything tumbled with levin. Venn could make out the rocky shore of the island, the last tiny strip not claimed by their prey, and the mice that bordered it. They were flailing strips of something flexible in the air, and even as the reptiles scrabbled on the ice, stones the size of mere scales dropped onto them from the guards. They did not pierce, did no harm, and now the skern could see the guards waving back the onlookers as they loaded another round. They were running, hundreds of them, and the sight made the hunters ravenous. Their back legs slipped on their saliva as they flung themselves forward. More stones fell pointlessly against scale and bark, and then the levin were taking up spears and lining the beach with bristles.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Guff was almost upon them when he heard Venn¡¯s cry. ¡°To the tunnel! They cannot surround us!¡± And he saw and knew his friend¡¯s course, a hollow and a stream at the base of the platform before them taller than the highest tree, barred against entry with wooden planks. He skidded round to the right and did not slow as he met the grille. Venn met it panting at the same time, and the wood disintegrated into nothing before their momentum. Spines bent and snapped but they felt no pain.


    They were inside the keep, and the raised room about the stream was filled with levin, scrambling for the narrow hallways about its edge.


    There were no manoeuvres, no tactics for this tight space. It was time for the brute force of the first hunt all over again.


    ¡°Charge!¡± screamed Guff.


    They heaved their bulks from the water, raised up their claws, and launched themselves into the sea of levin. At long last, the sweet resistance of flesh upon talon filled the air. So did the squeaks and squeals. They crashed their tails and raked their legs across the roiling mass, and blood sprayed and blood dripped and Venn felt the power of centuries fill him once more. They should never have doubted. Guff barrelled into some tall wooden thing in the centre of the hall and splintered it to matchwood. The top stayed intact and fell heavily into one of the exits. He hissed joy as he took up the panicked victims he had trapped and snapped them one by one in his aching teeth.


    They were thrashing about for several seconds before they realised all were dead before them.


    ¡°This is what we live for!¡± laughed Venn. Guff was ripping open the stomach of a crying guard hungrily, and Venn joined in. The taste of its flesh was life itself.


    When they had finished, they felt the pain. Spears and axes lay here and there among the bodies. They had been fighting back, but neither Venn and Guff had felt it and now it still did not matter. The spirit of the hunt would carry them through whatever came against them.


    ¡°Where next?¡± cried Guff.


    ¡°Anywhere!¡± roared Venn. ¡°Don¡¯t let them think. Don¡¯t let them regroup. Charge and kill!¡±


    They left the fallen and, led by Guff, plunged clumsily down a random corridor. The levin were small, but these passages were plenty big enough for skern too. At least they were not so wide as a dragon.


    They were so hungry, so fast, that they did not see the sharp turn until it was too late.


    The wall was as flimsy as the grille. They plunged headlong out into fresh air. It was the street behind the keep, lined with spearmice and slingers. Instinctively, Guff went left, Venn right. It was all a blur of rage and triumph. The bodies fell and some were groaning and crawling, but they deserved to die slowly amid the insolence of this foul place.


    Even more deserving were the cowards. Guff sniffed out fright within a storeroom halfway along the road and prised off its door. They spent ten minutes within.


    When they came out, their snouts were red and steaming. Venn could hardly gurgle his words out from beneath the clots.


    ¡°What?¡± Guff gasped.


    ¡°We better return to the castle and empty it before we go on. We can¡¯t risk brave ones coming up behind.¡±


    He turned to go, but Guff held him back. They stood drawing in grateful gulps of air in the warm carnage of the street. ¡°We really can do this, can¡¯t we Venn?¡± It wasn¡¯t a question. ¡°The greatest raid since the wave hunts. You were right, brother. We will have our own clan.¡±


    Venn considered. ¡°We have the upper hand, but we mustn¡¯t lose the pace.¡± But he allowed himself a nod of happiness all the same. ¡°That hall, the running, the fallen ones... we¡¯ll never forget this, brother.¡±


    They never forgot.

 Chapter 13

    The first five floors were clear. Only two more remained.


    The levin on the sixth knew what was happening, of course. They had heard the commotion and the dying screams of their families below. They were trapped and defenceless.


    When Venn and Guff barged through their barricade, the old grey-fur by the table in the corner only stood before the younglings and raised his paws. ¡°There is still time to take a different life. You can still choose peace. This meaningless slaughter does not have to go on.¡± He spoke in their tongue, as if that could change things.


    The skern chose death for them instead. Guff saw to the children. Venn tore the throat from the old timer and leant over his fading eyes. ¡°There can be no other life. Only the hunt.¡± He spoke in levinese, better that the dying teacher¡¯s last understanding be that they could never do something their rightful hunters could not.


    When they reached the seventh floor, they were disappointed to find it abandoned. ¡°Where are the shelled ones?¡± Venn demanded. He stomped over to the turret of the balcony and looked out over the lake. The summoning smokes were burning over the stone bridge across the river, twin plumes announcing the fall of Jiharu. ¡°It is not our aim to kill every levin in the world. The hunt must go on past today. We merely wish to break them, and for that, we need their masters.¡±


    Guff joined him at the turret beneath the raised roof. If he twisted his head out over the side, he could just make out the abandoned street down to the shore he had almost charged before Venn had chosen the element of surprise. They had not pillaged that place, and yet crumpled bodies lined the path regardless. He swelled with pride. ¡°Look. They fear us so much they kill each other in their struggle to escape.¡±


    ¡°I see,¡± said Venn after a long pause. ¡°Perhaps we needn¡¯t find individuals. We are marking our territory right now. But I still wish we could put an end to some of the perpetrators of this nonsense before they all flee to build another city.¡±


    It was then that the dragon swooped down towards them from high off over the shore. At first, Venn thought it was Alguan, but surely he couldn¡¯t have overcome all his enemies to rule the skies already. It was almost upon them before he made out the crimson lustre to its hide. ¡°Run!¡± he cried, pounding for the door.


    But Guff waited and waited, staring straight ahead. Only at the very last, as the jet of flame burst outwards to meet him, did he twist away and roll into the room. His scales all up his right side were singed and blackened. Venn hastened to pull the burning bark from his spines with awkward teeth. ¡°You fool!¡± he screamed in Guff¡¯s face. ¡°Do you wish to die?¡±


    Guff righted himself, brushed away the cinders, and indicated the balcony. Black smoke was filling the room. The crackle of flame endured beyond the dragon¡¯s breath. Venn parted his jaws in amazement. ¡°Now we use their own kind against them!¡± he hissed. ¡°Burn this evil tower to the ground, never to be remembered!¡±


    Guff prodded him in the side. ¡°But let us not be here when it does. Time to move on.¡±


    They had meant to continue the attack straight away, but the fire was moving slowly, and youngling levin were a delicacy rarely seen upon the open plains of the Endless Meadow, or so the elders had told them. They paused down the spiral ramp to try it. As they chewed, Venn¡¯s mind was already turning to the next steps. ¡°That dragon reminds me of our promise,¡± he said light-heartedly. ¡°We have Jiharu in our grasp, but do the dragons have this ¡®Season¡¯ in theirs? Let us not forget our search. We have two hunts now.¡±


    But they partook too long of the flesh to press their advantage. The celebration had begun, and yet, as they exited the smouldering keep, this time by its real door, they heard whisperings and the clinking of rocks in the streets and houses all around. They crept silently along the edge of the shadowy courtyard they found themselves in, until they found a passage northwards that seemed empty of life.


    The oversight was but one more mistake of a species that had grown too pompous and complacent for its own ambition. The skern emerged into a row of berry silos blocked by a platoon of spear-levin at its far end, but the guards were looking outwards, back towards the keep, and their exposed flanks were tantalisingly close. A short charge, a great snapping of bones, and the street was cleared. But even as they tore the last shreds of life from their sobbing foes, the skern heard the pattering of many feet upon the cobbles beyond, and the flapping of monstrous wings above. The dragons dare not sacrifice the city yet for the invaders¡¯ lives, but they were watching from afar, and directing their ground troops to ensnare them.


    ¡°We need to find cover,¡± Venn urged, retreating to the courtyard. ¡°We cannot yet risk this calculated battle. We need panic.¡±If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    They found it. They ascended a wide ramp from the courtyard, into a low deserted building opposite the burning keep. At its far end, they came to a viewpoint overlooking the eastern shore of the island. There, beyond a tangle of twisting platforms and shelters, a huge crowd of levin had gathered. There was a little promenade of wood sticking out into the lake from there, and those tiny rafts were lining up to bear the crowds away to the mainland. Even as they watched, a raft approached, and those animals squeezed onto the pier began to push and bicker for priority. Venn laughed as two lost themselves in the fight and dropped into the water with a great flapping splash. ¡°They make up this so-called union to pretend to cooperate, but when it comes to it, they fight to preserve themselves just the same.¡± He plotted out the path from the ramp descending into the next street, through another courtyard thronged with upturned tubs, to the roadways bordering the pier. Everything was too big, too grand for such a pathetic kind. ¡°Shall we go? We can trample the last of their hunters under their own people, and then...¡± he pointed to the soaring tower close to thee northern tip of the island, ¡°we remove their heads, for surely that is where they dwell. If they weren¡¯t the first upon those pieces of driftwood.¡±


    Guff hesitated. Then, they jerked upwards, spines bristling.


    Something big was creeping up the passage from behind. ¡°Dragon,¡± Guff breathed in Venn¡¯s ear.


    ¡°Only a tiny one, but still too much for us,¡± whispered Venn. He plucked meat from his claws and sized up the path. ¡°We deal with them by removing the levin. Our way has been shown to us. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    Quickly, they jumped from the ramp and scraped by the broken tubs in the courtyard. Two whimpering mouse-men lay propped against the middle one, but the skern paid them no attention. Already, they could feel the exultation of death, the rush of murder, coiling their forelegs like springs. How they longed to pounce.


    When they got to the very edge of the alley closest to the rafts, they let themselves go. There was no need to think, no need for control. The glory of the hunter was all they needed.


    The great crowd of levin saw them coming and screamed. They turned and the rear half of the group, those that had not seen the danger, collapsed beneath the unbearable weight of those already fleeing. The lucky ones found a clean end by the slashing claws of the predators as they dived headlong into the mass. Others fought for air and watched their loved ones fall in steaming flurries of blood.


    Venn and Guff snarled with delight as they tore into the helpless creatures closest. Then, they pressed forward over the roiling bodies and drove those that had found their feet away down the road. Again, those powerless soldiers had been looking the wrong way, but now they advanced, parting to allow wailing citizens to pass.


    They weathered the forerunners well. Then, they were swept away in the current of terror and the bravest fell into the jaws of their enemy. But there were more behind.


    The skern halted uncertainly. Ahead, a line of levin awaited them. Twig spears, smoothed and polished, sat poised in paws. The survivors of the stampede were buffeting through them, but the line held.


    Thirty feet of open ground stood between them. The street echoed with cries, but the skern were silent.


    Guff had taken a nasty cut to his shoulder. Venn was panting and pawing at the blood-soaked cobbles. There was something wrong with his left leg. It hurt when it took his weight. He was exhausted.


    ¡°These ones aren¡¯t running,¡± said Guff.


    But Venn knew what to do. He saw that rocky valley of the first hunt again, and that ragged line of levin brave enough to stand against them and let the others go on with their precious lives. There were more in this unnatural stone path before them now, but this time, the young skern didn¡¯t have just their ancestors to guide them. They had the glory and experience of true hunters now.


    Yet, as before, there was just one thing to do. They were deep in the open.


    ¡°Charge!¡± yelled Venn. They scrabbled on the slippery stones and slowly built speed.


    As one, the levin threw back their paws and a volley of points sailed their way. A sharpened twig gouged deep into Guff¡¯s snout, perfectly between the eyes, and he pulled back with a grunt of agony. The paws drew back again. More spears appeared. Venn had to break them. He dug deeper and pushed on, but the spears were already in the air.


    He saw one coming straight for him, and then his left eye saw no more. He howled with pain, but he didn¡¯t stop. The hunt depended on it.


    ¡°Mikrin! Mikrin!¡± something was screeching.


    He broke through. Levin fur floated about him in wiry clumps as he ripped and clenched. The blood mixed with his own and he felt nothing but pleasure as he tore them to pieces.


    They were all dead when a huge bulk unfolded from a side-street and pressed its mountainous right foot into Venn¡¯s back. He collapsed to the ground, scrapping and scrabbling to be free. Then, the claws that held him, pierced him, yanked him over onto his back.


    From his one remaining eye, he looked straight into a line of glistening yellow teeth.


    ¡°I told you not to disobey me!¡± boomed Master Skrenn.

 Chapter 14

    ¡°Happy hatchingday, Venn,¡± Guff croaked.


    ¡°Happy hatchingday yourself,¡± Venn laughed. They touched snouts briefly in the modern fashion, then wordlessly they walked from the motorcart stop towards their usual place.


    It was a dark, quiet little pub close to the city-centre. It used to be five minutes walk from the interchange where Guff came in from the Clanmates¡¯ Association Hall on the western outskirts. Nowadays, it was more like fifteen.


    The pub clearly wasn¡¯t designed with the skern in mind. The friends barely fit through the doorway, and the staff, all levin of course, had to line up ten or a dozen cushions from their booths for each of their larger guests to rest their aching legs. There were regulars there who loved them. Venn enjoyed the scowls of the others more.


    The landlord sloshed syrup into their jugs with cold efficiency. He would gladly ban all reptiles from his establishment, if such a thing were legal. But when they rounded the corner from the bar, they couldn¡¯t help but stop and grin wide, crooked grins. The tables and chairs had been cleared from the window looking out onto the cityscape. All their pillows and cushions were there, and they had been festooned with ribbons and balloons. Coloured bunting hung happily across the scene.


    The barmaid, a pretty young serving-mouse, was waiting for them. ¡°I knew you¡¯d come!¡± she squealed, clapping her paws in delight. ¡°Happy birthday, sirs! Please, take a seat.¡±


    Venn stood motionless. ¡°It¡¯s hatchingday actually,¡±he said. ¡°What, you think we come fully formed out of our mothers? With these spikes?¡± He tipped Guff a wink from behind his monocle.


    Guff sighed and shook his head. His friend was in a cheeky mood today. ¡°Don¡¯t mind him, my dear,¡± he reassured the serving-mouse, who had covered her whiskers with her apron. ¡°When you get to our age, you forget everything. Even your manners.¡±


    Venn stooped to bop the barmaid on her tiny twitching nose. ¡°Pardon me, missy. This is quite lovely. It really is a special place for a special day. Really, two of the oldest citizens, born on exactly the same day! What a coincidence indeed.¡±


    ¡°It must have been a three-quarter moon that day,¡± Guff added hurriedly. ¡°And a warm wind blowing from the old meadow. The elders used to say that made for a strong and healthy batch, back in the day.¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    There were approving murmurs from the other patrons around them. The levin, so short-lived, simply lapped up such fascinating oddities from a bygone age.


    They settled down, pride of place. ¡°Ah yes, and what is it that we¡¯re celebrating again?¡± Venn questioned loudly. ¡°One hundred and fifty seven years, or so they told me. Why, that can¡¯t be right. I feel old enough to remember Master Skrenn and the founding fathers!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s got into you?¡± hissed his friend. Everyone was looking at them. Conversations had hushed to a mild patter. It was hard to be careful when you were always centre of attention, but Venn was only making it worse.


    Guff¡¯s friend downed his drink in a single undignified slurp. The barmouse always used his largest pitchers, but it wasn¡¯t enough for that old gentleskern. Guff raised a chipped claw and clinked his own across the table. It was rather a bit too sickly for Guff nowadays. Venn downed that one too.


    The steely electric glare of the bulb above cast a horrible star of light off Venn¡¯s monocle. Guff could not say for sure if his companion was eyeing him keenly or just staring off absently beyond. His friend was becoming queer of late. Awkwardly, he turned his attention to the window and watched a bus go by beneath the silver skyline instead, packed with tiny, happy souls. It was still the summer holidays. He always enjoyed watching the children play in the warming fire of the sun.


    Finally, Venn stirred. ¡°There¡¯s other celebrations out there too. It really is a time of reflection.¡± So he had been watching him.


    ¡°A time of remembrance.¡±


    It took Guff a rather long time to see what he meant. But there they were: the younglings on the opposite pavement. The skern had hauled baskets of heavy, brightly printed fabric upon their backs; a couple of nimble levin labourers were scampering up ladders with corners of the cargo streaming behind them. They were hanging a row of banners from the streetlights. More were in place behind them, towards the interchange. They¡¯d walked right past them without looking up.


    Guff lay back against his cushions and let out a long, unsteady snort of stale air. He was lost to the world for a while. Venn smiled and sipped his beverage.


    The birthday was just random, an arbitrary record assigned by the city rehabilitation programme. The age was more carefully selected, so there could be no doubt that the two gentle elders had ever been involved in those long restless years after unification.


    Levinese medicine was truly a marvel, Guff wondered. They¡¯d used to think their masters so ancient.


    This was a big year for the Union, and Venn and Guff with it. This year, they would all be three hundred years old.

 Chapter 15

    The engines never roared now, only rose slowly to a comfortable purr. Guff watched the bustle of the platform, the shrieking boys and girls flinging legs here and there, the stiff businessmice parting the crowds with firm blows of their briefcases, with something like satisfaction. It was always good to get through it in one piece.


    They were out of downtown Jiharu in seconds. The engine rose a little more and then relaxed as the train slid into the downward curve of the slender track reaching out across the lake. The first time they had come this way, Guff had felt he knew what it was to be a dragon, with the whole word beneath your talons. Now, he only felt a little sick.


    There was a throaty cackle from across the carriage. ¡°Can¡¯t handle your syrup anymore, friend?¡± Venn called. He was so far away Guff could hardly make him out. There were pockets of speciesism here and there, down in poky little shops and snobby theatre gatherings, but the municipal council was certainly good enough to skern. All the trains had these extra-wide carriages with long, cushioned galleries from which to watch the buildings blur past. The council had been very good to them, hadn¡¯t it?


    Guff said nothing. He wanted to say many things, but they kept toppling over each other when he tried to rearrange them in his head. ¡°Just call it old age,¡± he settled on.


    Venn got painfully to his feet. Then he was crossing the passage, abandoning his own comfort for his friend¡¯s. He drew close. ¡°There¡¯s nothing to worry about now. Nobody, and I mean nobody, remembers any of that in these times. Nobody even cares. Remember what we used to tell them about the Twin Uprisings?¡±


    Guff remembered. Skern were valued as history teachers in the Union for obvious reasons. Guff and Venn had both signed up at twenty or so, when a couple of generations of levin had already slipped by like paper in the wind. Their pay had only grown as the years went on. Their memories had guided the city as much as its politicians and scientists. The pair had counted many famous figures among their tiny pupils. They had also attended most of their funerals.


    Memories were good, but there was also the national curriculum to uphold. And sometimes, particularly as far as the troubles were concerned, things were simplified. Sanitised.


    ¡°It was all lies. Like us.¡±


    Venn shook his head, though not disagreeably. They were over the lake now, speeding southwards through the busy riverside wharves where an ancient stone bridge had once stood. The foundations on its left bank were still visible. They had visited it once, years ago, but quite frankly it hadn¡¯t been worth the bus ride.


    Old minds are always wandering, but this time, like many times before, both wandered in the same direction. It was something that had allowed them to remain close over the past century or so, even after Guff became disillusioned with the approved brand of truth and withdrew to his rented floor of the rotting Clanmates'' Hall on the western lakeshore. The memory of the visit had kindled curiosity in Guff, and he pushed his guilt to one side for a more lonely day. He had to celebrate now. For his friend.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    ¡°So, I find myself sitting on a train, whizzing through town, and you still haven¡¯t told me where we¡¯re going. You could be taking me anywhere!¡± His voice was cheerful, and about halfway through, the words convinced his own heart too.


    Venn¡¯s nostrils flared. There was still that cheeky gleam in his eye, and Guff was struck by just how young he still looked. He wasn¡¯t too sure about himself, but Venn really could pass for one hundred and fifty seven.


    The gentleskern fumbled at a little leather pouch hooked onto a brittle spine on his side. ¡°It¡¯s a secret, and it shall remain so until we get there. But I do promise you it will be far more exciting than your choice last year.¡±


    Guff snorted good-naturedly at the insult. They took it in turns to organise their hatchingday outing. The pair weren¡¯t always backward-facing; often it was a trip to see a comedy at the Lakeside Cinema or a posh meal at one of the up-and-coming eateries downtown. Venn usually paid.


    But last time, it was Guff that had led them south-east on a trip down memory lane. The riverbank was redundant; the now-sedentary water lazed its way along a rather unceremonious canal towards the lakelands. So were most of the rusty warehouses that cast their ragged shadows over the slope. Even the marsh, seemingly endless in its day and ripe with the fancied scent of females, had drained into obscurity long ago.


    They had spent most of that afternoon arguing over where the burrows had been.


    Venn¡¯s aching feet had finally found their way past the clip on his pouch. He closed his claws around a small object and pulled it out. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll give you a little clue. We¡¯re still almost an hour away after all.¡±


    Guff glanced up at the stations on the route panel, but found no name there to kindle his curiosity. ¡°The rest of the gifts are getting sorted by the servants as we speak, I take it?¡± There was no bitterness in his voice. Or very little.


    Venn gargled out a sound that only his old friend would interpret as good-hearted dismissal. ¡°Yes, yes, and put into the twentieth vault on the left ready for a rainy day. I think you¡¯re going a bit senile in your old age; you say it every hatchingday.¡± But then the edges of his muzzle puckered in a sudden seriousness. ¡°This is the very best though. And why we¡¯re here.¡±


    Gently, he set down something onto the corner of Guff¡¯s cushion. Guff peered closer and closer. He really did need to scrape the money together for some decent spectacles.


    The offering was something long and thin. There were hints of intricate swirls and ornaments in Guff¡¯s blurred impression of it. And, when he moved his head from side to side, it gleamed and twinkled from a thousand glassy facets.


    He reached out and pressed a scale to its surface. Despite the pleasant warmth of the train, it was deeply, impossibly cold.


    ¡°So I¡¯m not alone. Another ancient miscreant sends his regards,¡± Guff said.


    ¡°Close enough,¡± said Venn.

 Chapter 16

    They looked out the window and watched the land go by. It had all seemed so vast, so untamed and dangerous and full of opportunity the first time they had seen it. But it had never been so. It had always been these very same tree-lined fields around the lake, a few miles at most, and now they could see clearly. There had been a bit more water, and more green, more life, but time didn¡¯t change space.


    ¡°What fools we were,¡± said Guff dreamily. He had the fuzzy notion that he had drifted off for a bit as the farms went on. ¡°Tangled up in dreams of conquest for ourselves on one claw and some noble quest to save the world on the other. What did we really believe? Can you even remember any more?¡±


    But Venn was silent. His eyes were open, but his mouth was not. At some point during Guff¡¯s doze, he had taken back the icy trinket from the cushion, and now Guff wondered if it had only been there in his dreams. He flattened back into the cushion to rest his bones and then he was opening his eyes once more. It was worryingly easy to slip away these days.


    It took him a moment to register that Venn had prodded him awake. ¡°Are we there?¡± he groaned.


    ¡°Almost,¡± said Venn. ¡°I thought you might want to see for yourself.¡±


    Guff reared up to look and shuddered. He had seen the sandstone peaks hundreds of times, but somehow the past seemed closer today. Today they were eerie sentinels once more, spies within pointing them onwards to journey¡¯s end.


    There was even some vegetation left here, ferns and shrubs skirting the feet of the giants and clustering about the railway fence in bright, billowing clumps. It wasn¡¯t called the Green any more, but at least this was still countryside. Time doesn¡¯t change space, and sometimes, it even gives place some peace.


    The tin speaker crackled into life above the squealing of brakes. ¡°Next stop: Lereg. Please can the skern carriage await the positioning of station ramps before exiting the vehicle. Thank you.¡±Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    ¡°Lereg, eh? Hope we¡¯re not going for a countryside amble?¡± said Guff as they waited to get out. He looked on without interest as the guard scurried for the forklift. No matter how much they went on and on about equality on the radio, there was a budget to consider too, and these little villages would be the last to be converted. It didn¡¯t matter for the sake of a few seconds.


    ¡°The only ambling we¡¯re doing is across the road,¡± replied Venn. He was still serious, Guff thought. Perhaps another syrup would do the trick. This was a day for celebration after all.


    They wriggled through the narrow constraints of the station and out into the village. There were still some wooden buildings here that showed damage from dragonfire, said the sign on the edge of the common. A village guidebook could be purchased from the Civil War Museum opposite. Nothing could get him in there, Guff thought. Better to enjoy the sunshine and watch the racquetball match at five.


    ¡°Here we are,¡± Venn announced. ¡°In there.¡± He pointed a claw across the lawn.


    Guff shook his head furiously. ¡°No, no, no. Why stir up bad memories? You know I don¡¯t look at it the way you do.¡±


    Venn regarded him coolly. ¡°As history? Something just to read about in school-books? You¡¯ll be surprised.¡±


    Guff cast his great muzzle about. He settled on a signpost and grasped for safety. ¡°The nearest stone tower is only ten minutes¡¯ walk. Even we can manage that. We¡¯ll buy some protein in that little shop, have a picnic.¡±


    Venn smiled, but not with humour. He had been expecting these excuses, it seemed. ¡°You¡¯ll be surprised,¡± he repeated. ¡°Let me show you.¡± He turned tail and swished off across the grass, as briskly as his old bones allowed.


    Guff watched in agony as his friend reached the door and squeezed through. Even to the last, he had been hoping he¡¯d turn back. But Venn was stubborn, Venn was harsh even, and Venn was the only fellow who could ever convince him to go into somewhere filled to the brim with the darkest days of his life.


    He followed.

 Chapter 17

    It was dark inside the museum. By the time his eyes adjusted, Venn was gone. He slithered across the cramped foyer, claws echoing awkwardly in the void, and found his admission had already been paid. ¡°Your friend said to meet him in the ceramics exhibit if you hadn¡¯t already caught up with him,¡± chirped the assistant. ¡°Last archway on the left.¡±


    But the instructions were not needed. Guff passed into the first gallery and came upon the bulk of his enormous partner across the passage. He was studying a picture glued to a corkboard next to a line of crude spears. It was a watercolour, broad strokes of blues and greys and browns, depicting the squat wooden keeps of the old city from the air. In the foreground, two long, dark silhouettes approached across the lake on a bridge of ice. Fountains of flame zigzagged across the sky in all directions as beasts descended upon the intruders beneath.


    Below the picture was the inscription The Exiles Attack. Above, in much larger letters, was the title of the whole display: The Origins of War.


    ¡°Not bad for a modern impression,¡± Venn said nonchalantly. ¡°But if I recall, we got there before the dragons reached us. If it happened like that, our bones would be at rest on the lakebed now rather than creaking through this horrible little attraction.¡±


    Guff recoiled against the far wall. His stomach roiled somewhere beneath him. ¡°How can you be so cruel?¡± he gasped. ¡°Why would you do this to me?¡± Across the gallery, a tiny levin boy stood watching the two leviathans with open fascination. His mother took his paw and hurried him off into the next room.


    Venn showed the tips of his teeth. ¡°Us. Whatever is haunting you now... well, I was right there by your side. All this happened, you¡¯re still here, and that¡¯s that. So pull yourself together. It¡¯s your hatchingday!¡±


    The bright sarcasm in Venn¡¯s voice wounded Guff more than those spears ever could. He had been looking forward to this trip. Now it could only be that his friend had sought out the place most likely to cause him misery, and he was enjoying it. ¡°Just... show me whatever we¡¯ve come to see and then we get out of here.¡±


    They passed through the other exhibits much too slowly. Venn didn¡¯t understand, or didn¡¯t remember, Guff thought as he bumbled through the vile things on show. He tried not to see, but even so, the banner of the Phantoms of the Hunt glowed green above him, an actor proclaimed that infamous ¡®call of blood¡¯ speech to the disenchanted burrow who whispered legends of the exiles¡¯ capture. And another voice seemed to join it, low and deadly in his soul.


    No, we kill and kill until there¡¯s none left.


    Venn was there, and Venn did the same things when the thrill of the hunt came upon him, but he had always been more cautious. The wild energy of those dark days, and those that followed, came from Guff alone.


    Then they passed the story of the first uprising and into the second. It was less painful, for the dragons had always been known to possess secret motives of their own, and blame for the forsaking of their oaths and their rebellion could rest only with themselves. Now they were gone, cast out into lands unknown, and the union had been peaceful ever since. It made the cases of teeth and charred arrows at least bearable.


    But Venn still did not stop. Onwards they went, down the almost-black corridor filled with the jumbled accounts of disembodied skern and levin emanating from plinths of portraits and medals, and into the last room on the left.


    It was like the others. Huge oak cabinets divided the space into a dozen slender corridors, all deserted. This time, the banner hung across the centre of the room, dotted with damp plaster from last week¡¯s storms. Relics: The Treasures of the Dragons.


    The cabinets were filled with urns and models and ceremonial plates, spotlighted from all angles. Centuries ago, they were the trove of myth, fired by the breath of the lords of the sky, coveted in grand lairs atop the highest mountains and cushioned by the clouds themselves. Now, they sat next to neat little labels bearing handy cataloguing numbers and the names of the kindly donors who had gathered them to this forgotten hoard.


    Venn consulted a list on the nearest wall and stamped on. Some of the age seemed to drain from his limbs with every step he took. Guff followed behind. The gaps between the cabinets were barely large enough for one reptile, let alone two side by side.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    ¡°Every year for a century I¡¯ve received something like what I have shown you today,¡± Venn murmured. His voice was no longer solemn; a spark of excitement was causing it to waver now. ¡°I¡¯ve dedicated so much time and expense to a response. I¡¯ve studied, I¡¯ve searched, I¡¯ve waited and listened. And finally, I have found.¡± He heaved his bulk through a junction, rattling the panes of glass. The elderly guard-levin in the corner frowned and went back to his newspaper.


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±


    Venn paused but did not look round. ¡°It is not mere regards. It is a reminder.¡±


    Guff froze too. Venn had spoken in Old Skernish. The guard had put down his paper.


    Venn whirled his head. His monocle gleamed in the spotlights. ¡°We¡¯ve got a promise to keep. Or had you forgotten? No, we¡¯re skern. We remember and we honour our promises. Look!¡± His neck twisted again and indicated a small ceramic disc between two plates. The label said Ceremonial Tablet. Guff knew better.


    ¡°The Season.¡± Guff was not aware he had spoken in that long-forgotten language too. But talk of honour and promises... it stirred something in his spines. His tail swished against the threadbare carpet.


    Venn nodded, enthralled by the artifact. It was plain, unadorned, and unassuming. It had power no-one else in the world could ever dream of. Except one.


    ¡°He said we were destined to die in Jiharu. That¡¯s probably true, though not in the way we feared. We failed, and for the best, but we received our help all the same. Surely we do not have long left. These years have been a difficult hunt, but we come to the final stages at last. The ambush is set. It is time for the charge.¡±


    Guff reached out and rested a claw uneasily on Venn¡¯s foreleg. He was quivering slightly, a tense throb he had not felt for a long time. Despite the guilt dredged up by this rotting museum, something deep within felt refreshed. But that did not change the fact that his old friend was speaking gibberish. ¡°So it was here all along. Right under our maws! What of it?¡±


    Venn¡¯s gaze settled on his friend. He flashed his teeth. ¡°What matters is that I¡¯ve got a clean record and an expensive lawyer. Old reptiles can slip in their final years. I¡¯ll be fine. But if I¡¯ve burdened myself with this all these moons, then it falls to you to finish it.¡±


    He edged closer to the cabinet. ¡°Can you still act on instinct... hunter?¡±


    He brought a heavy foreleg down on the cabinet. Shards of glass, splinters of oak and jagged edges of pottery burst into the air and rained down on their backs. The explosion was deafening. It was followed by two more as Venn crunched through the case like plywood. Then, he thrashed across the walkway and upended the opposite cabinet in a mighty heave of his snout.


    Guff jumped back, frightened half to death. Through the erupting dust, he saw the guard-levin leap from his chair and lunge for a button built into the wall. A reedy squawking added its weak voice to the cacophony. ¡°Bloodlust!¡± screamed the guard for all he was worth. ¡°We¡¯ve got bloodlust. Two individuals! Call the police. Police!¡± He started forward for the doorway, hugging the wall.


    Guff looked down at the nearest display. Most of the collection was smashed to smithereens, but Venn had been careful to avoid the Season. There it sat amid the carnage, timeless, waiting for a master. He hesitated.


    Venn stopped in his destruction and rounded on his friend. ¡°See you soon, brother. Do not fail us.¡± Then he was gone, barrelling through the cabinets towards the door. He bowed his legs and leapt clean over the final case, straight into the path of the guard-levin. The volunteer looked up, whiskers trembling, greying paws held up in front of his face for mercy. ¡°Please!¡± he squealed.


    Venn opened his maw and roared. It was the primal scream of a thousand ancestors before them, and in its thunder was a call to strength, to the glory of the hunt.


    Something awakened fully inside of Guff. The despair, the penance, the rent or the dining club on Tuesday - none of it mattered now. He reached out and clasped the disc gently in his teeth. He found the fire escape without thinking, without even realising he had looked for a path. There was a dull protest from his joints, but it was buried now. Hurts meant nothing in a time like this.


    The little levin had fallen down before Venn in a dead faint. Guff had meant to catch his friend¡¯s eye, but his burrow-mate was too busy smashing his way through the displays to see. It would be a while before the police discovered something had been stolen. If at all.


    He thudded through the iron door and into fresh air. It was a beautiful day, and the sun beckoned from behind the prehistoric spines beyond the fields. A crowd was gathering on the village green, and sirens were wailing, but a row of trees leading away to the river would give him plenty of cover.


    He was breathless, but he plunged on through the scrub nonetheless. He had the Season, the key to something he didn¡¯t understand, and he had a target, a creature who could be anywhere in the wilds beyond the union, hiding from his brethren of fire, or imprisoned, or worse. He had no direction, and no-one to aid him, and a failing three hundred year old body to drag along the way.


    But he had his honour, his purpose, and the skills of the hunt.


    And he was free.