Page 2 of Alien Devil's Wrath
I’d been picking my way through a boulder field when the first territorial call echoed off the rocks. Not quite a growl, not quite a chirp. Something between the two that raised everycombat instinct I had. The briefing materials had called them Shard-back Stalkers. Pack hunters. Coordinated. Lethal.
The sound came again from my left. Then behind. Then from above.
I dropped into a defensive crouch beside a large boulder, the Sovereign’s blade ready. The metallic stench of reptilian predator drifted on the wind. They were close.
When they came, they came all at once.
The first Stalker burst from behind a rock formation. Two hundred pounds of muscle and scale with bone spines bristling along its back. It launched itself at my throat.
I caught it mid-leap, my hands sinking into scaled hide, and hurled it into the nearest boulder. Bone cracked against stone.
The second was already airborne. I rolled left as razor-sharp spines whistled past my head. The creature landed hard, already flicking more spines from its back. I lunged inside its reach and opened its throat with the Sovereign’s blade.
Two down.
The real pack revealed itself then. A dozen shapes flowing from hiding spots I hadn’t even noticed. Their scales shifted color to match the rocks, natural camouflage that made them nearly invisible until they moved.
I fought with everything I had. The blade sang through the air, finding throats and hearts. My fists shattered skulls. But there were too many, and they knew this terrain better than I ever could.
A spine punched through my shoulder from behind, emerging from my chest in a spray of blood. My vision blurred. Another spine buried itself in my thigh. A third opened a line of fire across my ribs.
I dropped to one knee as the pack circled, their calls rising in triumph. My healing factor was already working to seal thewounds, but it couldn’t work fast enough with the spines still embedded.
I gripped the spine in my shoulder and pulled. The shaft came free with a wet sound, but snapped halfway, leaving fragments deep in the muscle. The one in my thigh broke off at skin level when I tried to remove it, the barbed head still buried in the meat.
A Stalker twice the size of the others stalked forward. The pack leader. Its head waved back and forth, tasting the air. When it opened its mouth, rows of needle teeth gleamed.
It lunged.
BRONWEN
The hunting calls carried on the morning wind, different from the usual territorial disputes. This was coordinated aggression, the sound of Stalkers that had cornered something large.
I lowered the salvaged binoculars I’d taken from a dead Merrith patrol six months ago. Nothing interesting had happened at Slade’s compound in three months. Same routes, same schedules, same grinding predictability.
But this? This was new.
The sounds came from the canyon system about two kilometers south, where the old riverbed cut through the approaches to the compound. Five years of surviving here meant I knew every rock formation, every hidden path, every spot where you could watch without being seen.
The hunting calls reached a crescendo, then stopped. In the sudden quiet, something else carried on the wind. A sound that didn’t belong to any creature I knew.
I tucked the binoculars into my pack and headed toward the disturbance, moving silently across familiar stone. Not concern driving me, but curiosity. After years of the same patterns, something unexpected had finally arrived.
As I got closer, the sounds sharpened. Snarling, the crack of breaking bone, the whistle of bone spines cutting air. A full pack working together.
I reached the ridge overlooking the riverbed just as the big alien dropped to one knee.
My first thought was that he was absolutely magnificent.
A Vinduthi warrior, if the stories were true. Seven feet of grey-skinned predator built for violence. Broad shoulders that could demolish doorways, tapering to a lean waist that promised speed as well as strength. Iron-grey patterns marked his skin, traceries that marked him as one of the galaxy’s most dangerous species. Small horns curved back from his temples, and even from here I could see his red eyes.
My second thought was that he was about to die, and that would be such a waste.
Blood pooled beneath him, dark and almost black. Bone spines jutted from his shoulder and thigh. He breathed in ragged gasps, still fighting for control. Even wounded, even dying, every line of his body spoke of contained violence.
The pack leader stalked forward, massive head weaving as it prepared for the killing strike.
I stepped into view and whistled. Three ascending notes followed by a sharp trill.
