Page 39 of Alokar
“That was you the other night, wasn’t it?” I snarled, remembering Ewok’s description of the grizzly’s odor. “You murdered Rodney.”
“Yes,” Yaard hissed with savage satisfaction. “I was hunting you. Your death would have shattered Ewok’s spirit, but that worthless human male blundered into my path.” He smacked his lips with revolting pleasure. “He was bitter and stringy. Nothing like your father’s tender flesh, or as succulent as I expect you will be.”
Rage exploded through my soul at his words. I screamed like a banshee, clawing and kicking with desperate fury, but Yaard only threw back his head and laughed, his iron grip on my skull and massive reach keeping me from landing even a glancing blow.
Yaard’s sadistic amusement with my frenzied struggles lasted only a minute. His massive paw cracked across my face with the force of a sledgehammer, the impact launching me backward. My body slammed into the earth, tailbone strikinga stone with a sickening crunch that sent lightning bolts of agony racing up my spine. Stars exploded across my vision in brilliant, nauseating spirals—cartoon-like in their intensity as consciousness threatened to abandon me entirely.
Through the haze of pain, I felt his hands encircle my waist. I braced for the pierce of fangs tearing through flesh, for the wet heat of blood flooding my throat. Instead, he hoisted me up and flung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, my ribs grinding against the sharp ridge of his shoulder with every step.
The rotting grizzly hide pressed against my face, maggots squirming against my cheek as the overwhelming stench of liquefying flesh invaded every pore. My stomach convulsed violently, and I retched with such force that bile erupted from my throat, cascading down Yaard’s broad back. He didn’t even flinch—but I considered the act a moral victory.
Time became meaningless as we traversed the wilderness—minutes bleeding into hours or perhaps hours compressing into moments. My skull pounded with each jarring step, the world spinning in sickening rotations. Gradually, the dense forest gave way to stark, wind-carved stone. Jagged outcroppings jutted from the mountainside like broken teeth, their surfaces pockmarked with yawning cave mouths—perfect winter dens for creatures that preferred darkness to light.
Yaard headed toward one of the larger caverns, ducking beneath its stone threshold before hurling me to the ground with such force that my body actually bounced off the packed dirt floor. The impact drove the air from my lungs in a strangled wheeze. In the dank, enclosed space, the stench intensified—a concentrated essence of death and blood that seemed to seep into my very pores.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the cave’s horrific contents materialized like the backdrop to a nightmare. A pile of animal furs moldered in one corner, edges black with rot. But beyond that... dear God. Bones. Mountains of bones, some still bearing strips of desiccated flesh. Femurs and ribcages created macabre sculptures in the shadows, and I forced my gaze away before my mind could catalog which ones had once belonged to humans.
“How long have you been here?” The words scraped from my throat. How many innocent people had he dragged into this charnel house?
“Many rotations,” Yaard grunted. “The Trogvyk helped me escape to Earth when the Alliance dared to brand me as a criminal.”
“So, you’ve just been hanging out in the mountains eating people, huh?” The sarcasm felt like armor against the horror.
Yaard’s black gaze fixed on me, one thick eyebrow arching with casual menace. “When I’m hungry.”
I wished with every fiber of my being that I hadn’t asked.
Yaard towered nearly eight feet above me, his colossal frame draped in the putrefying remnants of what had once been a magnificent grizzly bear. The pelt clung to his shoulders like a second skin of death itself, hanging in festering tatters. Patches of matted brown fur, slick with bodily fluids I refused to identify, interspersed with sections where the hide had turned black and began sloughing away in wet, meaty chunks. The exposed areas revealed yellowed subcutaneous fat crawling with an armyof maggots, their pale, segmented bodies writhing in obscene ecstasy as they feasted on the decomposing flesh. The sight made my gorge rise so violently I had to clamp my jaw shut to keep from retching again.
He possessed not a single trace of Ewok’s noble bearing or handsomeness. Where Ewok’s features held an almost regal elegance despite his alien nature, the abomination looming over me was pure, untamed savagery. His eyes burned with feral madness, twin black orbs that reflected the scant light that penetrated the cave. His snout jutted forward like a bear’s muzzle, broader and more elongated than Ewok’s refined features, while his yellowed fangs—God, I couldn’t bear to imagine what had stained them that sickening hue—protruded from blackened gums in jagged, uneven rows.
Where the bear’s fur had completely rotted away, Yaard’s own coarse, midnight-black hair showed through, and I caught glimpses of the tattered remnants of a purple robe. The fabric, now little more than threadbare strips clinging to his massive frame, spoke of a former life of dignity and respect. Ewok told me he had been an ambassador once—a male others had looked up to, whose counsel was sought and valued. But like that part of his existence and the ceremonial garment that had once signified his status, nothing remained but rotting tatters and the stench of moral decay.
“Ewok told me what happened with Duke Ako and his mate,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I fought to keep him talking. Every second of conversation was another heartbeat of life, another moment for Ewok to find me. “Why aren’t you dead? Kerzak can’t swim.”
His laughter erupted like the sound of bones grinding against stone, devoid of any warmth or genuine mirth. “That pompous fool Ako would have imagined my demise, naturally. But he lacks my strength, my cunning, my will to survive.” His eyes gleamed with savage pride. “The cavern was filled with debris—some of which proved buoyant enough to carry me through the waters. I was injured, yes, but I endured what would have killed lesser beings.”
He took a deliberate step toward me, his massive foot crushing something that crunched wetly beneath his weight. I scrambled backward on my hands and knees, careful to avoid the bone pile that promised nothing but sharp edges and the lingering essence of his previous victims.
“So, you have me,” I managed, my voice trembling despite every effort to project strength. “What’s your plan now?”
Yaard’s lips peeled back in a grotesque parody of a smile. “Kill the princeling slowly, savoring his screams, then feast on your tender flesh. Then I will commandeer his shuttle and return to Kerzak, where I will slaughter Vienda’s husband and spawn, claim her as my mate, and ascend to the throne as the rightful king.”
The casual way he outlined the litany of horrors made my skin crawl. He was like some twisted cartoon villain, except the threat he posed was all too real.
“That might not be as simple as you imagine,” I said, forcing steel into my voice. “The Alliance has branded you a criminal. They won’t exactly roll out the red carpet for your return.”
His laughter deepened into something that sounded maniacal. “Foolish human female. You comprehend nothing of the vast network that supports my cause. The consortium’s fingers reach deep into both the Alliance and Earth’s power structures. My rule will be absolute, and your pathetic species will be treated exactly as the livestock you’ve always been.”
The future he painted for humanity made my blood run cold.
Before I could formulate another question, he moved. His massive hands flipped me onto my stomach, driving a knee into my spine with such force that my vertebrae popped. White-hot agony lanced through my back as he grabbed what looked like an elk hide from the pile, his claws tearing a strip of rotting flesh from its edge. The putrid leather bit into my wrists as he bound them behind my back, then secured my ankles with the same methodical cruelty.
The remaining elk fur came next, thrown over my body like a blanket of decay. The stench was so overwhelming and vile that my stomach convulsed violently. I barely managed to turn my head before bile erupted from my throat, splattering across the cave floor.
“I will return shortly, human,” he said, his voice dripping with pleasure as he moved toward the cave entrance. “For dinner.”
Terror crept across my skin, but I forced it down, buried it beneath layers of determination. Ewok would come for me.
