Page 5 of Tharn's Hunt
Maybe it's another fever dream. Maybe I'm already dead.
But one truth cuts through the delirium:
I am not alone here.
And perhaps, neither was my sister.
Chapter 3
NOT PREY, BUT POSSIBLY STILL LUNCH-SIZED (A HUNTER'S DILEMMA)
THARN
Ihave never hunted a female before.
Mere sols ago, I did not believe they existedoutside the clan's ancient stories. Now I stalk one across the dust, and the very air feels different.
She moves with a clumsy urgency that is neither prey nor predator. Not the careful prowl of a shadowmaw. Not the heavy trudge of a rock-beast. Something new. Something fascinating.
Something potentially dangerous.
I crouch, studying the marks in the sand. Small prints, too perfect to belong to any creature native to Xiraxis. No claws. No tail-drag. Just neat impressions, each one placed one in front of the other, if unsteadily.
My claw traces the edge of one print. Smaller than mine by half. How can something so small be a thing of legend? How can something this delicate be real?
Rok’s female,Jus-teen, had spoken of this female with such longing. Her clumsy mental images had been clear: “Find her. Please, Tharn. Find my sister.”
Jah-kee.
Rok is my clan-brother. Finding Jus-teen’s sister-female was my duty. But the clan has changed. Since Rok returned with Jus-teen, every male walks with a new tension. We watch him. We watch his female. We wonder.
But there is more. Another reason I took the hunt.
Since the females came, my blood runs hot. My sleep is thin. There is a hunger that has no name, because meat does not kill it. My body is a stranger to me.
To track another female… it is not just a rescue. It is a hunt for a cure to this new madness.
Shaking these thoughts away, I return to the trail. For solmarks, I've been tracking her, following her increasingly erratic path across the dust. She travels by Ain’s light, and sometimes too far past when Ain retires.
Her trail leads toward a cluster of stone spires reaching up from the dust. I quicken my pace, eager to close the distance. But as I approach the spires, I notice something that makes me freeze mid-stride.
A red tinge. Dark against the orange rock. The ever-shifting dust tried to hide it, but the truth is clear to a tracker’s eye.
Lifeblood.
My dra-kir gives a hard, steady thump as I crouch, touching one claw to the mark. It’s dry, but recent.
My head snaps up as I scan the area, nostrils flaring. The scent is faint but unmistakable.
Shadowmaw.
She was hunted.
I follow the trail, alarm growing with each new evidence of the dark liquid against the dust. There is too much.
The lifeblood leads upward to a rocky outcropping where signs of struggle mar the stone. Claw marks. More lifeblood. Loose rocks. The unmistakable pattern of a desperate climb.
She did not just run. She fought back. And she climbed.
