Page 22 of Taken to Kor
And then they start to shriek.
“Aghhh!” I roar. In front of me, Herannathon drops to one knee. I hear the unmistakable thud of more bodies hitting the floor behind me, my pirates shroving incapacitated by the sound. And there’s only one sound that has such an effect on Niahhorru males.
“They’re female!” Tevbarannos shouts behind me.
Not all might have been, but somehadto be female. The high-pitched vocals screaming in pain. It’s a sound that can wound a pirate. One of the only things that can.
“Gerannu, we need a scrambler!” I roar as I collapse to one arm on the floor. I feel the weight of a body slamming into my back. It impales itself immediately, but the scream it emits is enough to keep me grounded.
“Auuuurrraghhh!” I shout to try to drown the sound out. It drives an anvil through my skull, breaks each of my bones, makes me want…makes me want… “Deena!”
“Rhork?” She mewls. “Rhorky porky…please…please talk to me.”
I want to laugh. I do laugh as I peel the creature caught on my hiannru tines off of me and toss the wet, weighted body onto the floor at the same time that another attacks me from the side. I see it coming and grab it around the throat before it can unleash its battle cry — beforeshecan unleashherbattle cry.
I smash her skull against the ground, crushing it easily. My fingers sink through hard bone, wet, fleshy skin and then the hot, sticky matter beneath both. Red ink leaks across the floor and I’m captivated by a strange thought.
A memory of blood. The color had been so strange to see. A violent, terrible red that glistened with voracity. Human blood is the only blood that shares this color, of all the creatures I’ve ever encountered in this galaxy.
A lull in the screaming is what I need to be able to rise to my feet, even as unease tangles my thoughts and scrapes its bloody nails across my chest. More creatures wail — but in a deeper pitch — and I look up in time to be able to swing my cannon around and fire at the things leaping at me, jaws distended, tongues lavishly long and a bright, unnatural pink. I fire my cannon three times, rendering six of them dead.
Breathing picking up, I try to marshal it. She doesn’t need to know about this weakness. She doesn’t need to know that these creatures might have more in common with her than she thinks. She doesn’t need to know that this battle is more challenging than we’d hoped. I want her to have no reason to think I would ever fail her.
“We’re fine,” I answer, reopening communication between us. “Just worry about yourself. Are you out of the vent yet?”
“Still…working on it.”
“Keep working on it. And Deena?”
“Yeah?”
“You might hear a loud sound echoing through my token soon. Don’t panic. It’s a scrambler and will help us fight. I’ll still be able to hear you over the sound.”
“Oh. Okay, but…” She sniffs. “I really want to get out of here.”
“I’m coming for you.”
Three turns later and I catch the scent of ebo nut. Crouching down, I spot smears of it on the wall. It’s at this point that the scrambler goes live and a harsh white noise blasts through my token. It drowns out the sound of the screeches, but not the sound of Deena’s gasp.
“I’ve found your trail and am following it. I’ll be there soon.” Up ahead, broken glass floats in thick, viscous puddles on the floor. Metal tanks lay bent and broken among them, like shipwrecks. All that’s missing is the storm.
“Rhorkanterannu,” Herannathon says. He’s stopped at a body by one of the tanks and uses his foot to flip it over. “Look.” The body appears to be a human male. With skin like darkness layered over gold and distinct features, it’s clear that this male was not one of the creatures. “The tanks were ripped open and this one.” He curses and so do the dozen other pirates that crowd into this intersection with us. “This one was female.”
A human woman with pale skin and a bald head lays split open in the center of the hall surrounded by her own half eaten entrails and bloody footprints leading away from her down the hall to the right. My heart jerks.
They were chasing her.
The scent of ebo nut is long gone, but I follow the tracks the bloody footprints make to the next hall. Another right. Another left.
“Shrov.” Herannathon snarls at my back.
The hall isfilledwith them. Overflowing.
“There are shroving hundreds of them!” He opens fire as vibrations echo through the floors. Standing at the intersection of this hallway, I glance left and I glance right. He’s right.
There are hundreds. Centare. There are thousands of them. And they’re all descending on us simultaneously.
I need to get Deena. And then we need to set this place ablaze so that it burns like a sun.
