Page 106 of The Weaver

She laughed and lifted a hand, sweeping loose strands of her dark hair behind her ear. Rekosh turned his attention forward again.

They were approaching a huge tree, its base spanning at least ten segments wide. Based on the sound of the last signal, their friends had to be just on the other side.

“Who awaits?” Rekosh called as he and Ahmya rounded the trunk. “The impatient hunter, or the overcautious delver?”

No response came.

Rekosh’s fine hairs rose as realization struck him.

None of the blackrock signals had possessed the usual little flourishes he and his friends, especially Telok, added to them. And it was unlike Telok and Urkot to not respond, especiallyfrom this close—and especially to such friendly teasing. They should’ve hurled eightfold as many insults at him in the time it took for his next few steps.

That uneasy feeling reasserted itself. His fingers tightened around the haft of his spear, and his fine hairs remained standing, picking up the various scents on the air.

There was a faint smell of vrix, but it was no vrix with whom he was familiar.

The vegetation to their right shook.

He should have kept Ahmya to his left, shielding her with the tree.

Rekosh’s upper right hand darted out to grab hold of her arm, and he yanked her toward him. She released a startled sound as her feet left the ground. Her spear fell from her hand.

A male shadowstalker with dull green markings and gray ash smeared over his face burst from the undergrowth, a coil of silk rope in his hand, green eyes ablaze with fury.

Not Telok. Absolutely not Telok.

Ahmya’s momentum carried her straight to Rekosh. He caught her against his side, banded his arms around her, and twisted to draw her away from the lunging vrix. In the same motion, he brought his spear around and thrust it toward the attacker.

The other male dug his legs into the ground and threw his weight backward, pitching his hindquarters into the dirt. The sharpened point of Rekosh’s spear passed within a finger’s breadth of the male’s face.

Ahmya clung to him with arms and legs alike as tightly as she ever had.

Wood cracked overhead. Rekosh braced his left legs against the tree trunk and shoved off, leaping clear of it just before a second male, this one with amber markings, came crashing down on the spot Rekosh had just been standing.

Vegetation thrashed and branches snapped as two hugefemales charged around the trunk. Like the males, they had ash on their faces. Both carried long war spears and were clad in dull, dingy, beaten-up adornments and armor pieces—gold that had undoubtedly been weathering the worst of the Tangle’s conditions for the last several moon cycles.

They were Queen’s Fangs.

Zurvashi’s Fangs.

“Capture the traitor!” The lead female commanded in a booming voice.

Rekosh knew her, knew those clear blue eyes. She was Ulkari, sister of Urshar. One of the vrix still loyal to Zurvashi of whom the females in Goldflame Tunnel had spoken.

Rekosh scrambled backward, spear raised and ready, putting precious distance between himself and the attackers. But he knew all too well that the gap could be closed in a heartbeat.

Only as the two males righted themselves did Rekosh see the black furs draped over their shoulders, as dirty and worn as the females’ gold.

Zurvashi’s Claws.

Ahmya whispered something, but her words were muffled against Rekosh’s shoulder. She was trembling, her nails digging into his hide, her heart racing.

And he felt the same fear. Fear for the future that had seemed so close, fear for his little mate with her huge, loving heart. Fear that once again, his entire world was on the verge of destruction, held aloft over some yawning, bottomless pit only by the most frayed of threads.

An ember of fury sparked in his chest, but it was instinct that drove him.

He turned around and ran.

“Coward!” Ulkari roared. “Betrayer!”

---