Joel finished unloading the last few pieces of reclaimed lumber and used his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. He scanned the area and inspected the faces of all the people laboring at their tasks.
“Wur es Burr..r..ree?”
“Nobody knows, buddy. Druz is the only one who’s seen him, and she will only tell us that he has been out scouting,” Doyle answered. He noticed Cassandra walking back from where she was clearing brush and called her over. “Have you seen Barry?”
“No.” Cass saw Joel’s forlorn expression, reached an arm around him, and gave him a half hug. “Barry is fine. He just needs some time to sort his feelings. Barry has a big heart, and taking lives hurts his soul. Even if those lives were drol’ka, it’s still something he has to come to terms with.”
“I unnerstend. I juse mess humm.”
“Look at you! You’re talking so much better!” Cass pulled her arm from his shoulder and used her hand to rough up his hair. She watched him smile as he pulled away from her.
“She’s right, bud. You’ll sound like the rest of us in no time!” Doyle added.
A sharp whistle drew their attention. One of the lookouts came sprinting toward them.
“Cass, there’s movement coming from down in the bottoms,” he blurted as he ran up.
“Which way?” she asked.
“Down below the eastern ridge.”
“It wasn’t Barry, was it?” Doyle asked.
“No way. I’ve seen him patrolling around, and there is no way I wouldn’t recognize him. Whoever it is, they don’t want to be seen. They stick to the shadows and stay in the trees,” the scout explained.
“Okay, I’ll speak with Druz’ka Lanth. You three go and rouse all the off-duty scouts. I want a full perimeter watch. Line of sight spacing. If anybody loses sight of another watchman, sound the alert. If the drol’ka are planning something, we can’t take any chances.” Cass ordered.
Joel and Doyle rushed off with the scout. Cass headed for the cabin, where Druz was going over the agricultural assignments with the gardening crew. The crews were exiting the cabin when she arrived, and she found Druz standing alone.
“What has you anxious, child?” Druz asked.
“A scout spotted an unknown figure stalking around. Just below the eastern ridge.”
“And what was your assessment of the situation?” Druz quizzed her.
“I sent the scout, Joel, and Doyle to pull the entire scouting detail and form a full perimeter watch. They were told to stay close enough to keep eyes on their flanking watchmen and to sound an alert if anybody lost sight of one another.” Cass answered.
Druz gave a slight nod in acceptance of Cassandra’s course of action.
“What would you have us do next?” Cass asked the Kai’den.
“Nothing. We can’t be sure the unknown entity means us danger, but we have to assume they do. The scout will do their jobs, and we will let Barry do his. A full perimeter watch won’t go unnoticed by our community. Go temper their anxieties. Assure them it is just a necessary safety measure and there is no need to be alarmed, for now.”
“Yes, Druz’ka Lanth.” Cass turned and hurried from the cabin.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry sat against the trunk of a massive oak tree. The wind was dead today, and the shade offered a cool reprieve from the stifling heat of the Oklahoma summer. The heat didn’t cause him physical distress. His augments made his body far better at regulating his internal body temperature, but it was noticeably cooler in the shade. He knew his desire to escape the brutal gaze of the August sun was more about habit than need. When your entire life is a series of conditioned behaviors, you tend to find comfort in keeping to the rituals.
He wasn’t resting, he was observing. Barry learned that he didn’t need to rely on his eyes to scout. His heightened senses of hearing and smell could penetrate the dense woods far better than his eyes could. By remaining stationary, he could remain undetectable and let the sounds and smells come to him.
Barry didn’t pick this tree for its shade alone. This oak had a large gap in its bough. Some long-forgotten thunderstorm had ripped one of the main branches down. The missing branch allowed a clear view of the ridge that formed the eastern boundary of their fledgling community. From this spot, Barry could see four of the scouts who kept watch over the eastern ridge. One of the scouts lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes and fixed on something below him. Whatever it was, no sounds or smells offered any evidence of what it was. The scout let the binoculars drop, where they were caught by the strap around his neck. The figure spun away, and a loud whistle rang from the ridge.
Barry knew what the whistle meant. The scout spotted something to the south of Barry’s location. Barry wasted no time in getting to his feet and heading in the direction the scout was watching.
Trees rushed by as Barry sprinted through the forest. He vaulted over a fallen pine tree and caught hold of a hanging oak branch. His legs curled forward as he used his handhold to pivot upward, and his momentum propelled him into the air. Landing dozens of feet away, his legs pumped him onward. He didn’t waste time navigating around the small scrub cedars and various tanglings of hanging vines and thorny briars. He crashed through the young cedars and ripped holes through the biting thorn bushes. Any tendrils that were unfortunate enough to snag on his arms or legs were pulled along with him. They would reach the end of their tether and snap away from their former attachments.
Two shallow trenches formed in the soft forest litter as a foreign scent found Barry’s nose, and he skittered to a stop. The smell didn’t belong in these woods. It had the acrid sweet smell of decomposition, which was very normal in the forest. Things die here, every day. It was the industrial aromas that marked it as out of place. Barry could smell hints of internal combustion engine exhaust, some kind of floral fabric softener, and the very noticeable stench of sweaty body odor.
Whoever was out here was either human or drol’ka.
He closed his eyes as he rolled his head from side to side. Long drawn breaths gathered the air, and his olfactory receptors sorted and identified the various chemicals present. The intruder’s scent was denser to his left. Barry trotted away from the ridgeline and kept sucking air through his nostrils. The more concentrated the scent became, the faster Barry ran.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
A twig snapped ahead of him, and he rushed toward the sound. He caught up enough to hear the rapid footfalls of the fleeing biped. The sounds of running grew louder, but Barry knew he had been detected. Whoever was fleeing picked up their pace, and they were no longer trying to remain undetected. The footsteps were now joined by loud snapped branches and crunching leaves. The chase was on, and Barry took off at full speed.
Suddenly, a second set of retreating footfalls joined the first. A few yards later, and a third set was fleeing from him. As he ran, he could pick up the discernible scents of three individuals. He erupted from the trees and leaped over the dirt and rock road. He raised his arms and chopped them downward against a thick oak branch that blocked his path. The sharp crack of splitting wood echoed through the trees.
More pairs of sleeping feet joined in, and Barry could no longer decipher how many were running from him. He performed a quick calculation and realized no human could run from him this far and not be overtaken.
DROL’KA!
Barry zoomed through the forest with reckless abandon. He swatted away anything small enough to be dislodged and rolled under, dove through, or jumped over everything else. He saw a clear sky before him and knew that meant another elevation change. The tree line ended, and an old logging clear-cut bordered the edge of a thirty-foot sheer drop. Barry started to slow down, but he heard the sounds of rocks sliding below him and knew his quarry was nearby. He sped toward the ledge and saw figures hustling into the treeline below. The trailing drol’ka had just reached the ground and was racing to catch up. Barry never slowed as he stepped to the edge and propelled himself toward the trailing figure.
The drol’ka spun at the thunderous clap from Barry thumping into the hard-packed earth. When he spun, he saw the enormous form of Barry rising from his crouched landing. The drol’ka turned to continue fleeing, but Barry’s weight was already loaded onto his powerful thighs, and he pounced on the backpedaling drol’ka.
“WAIT! WAIT! WE AREN’T LIKE THE OTHERS. WE’RE ABSTAINERS!” the terrified drol’ka screamed.
“What you are is dead.” Barry squatted over the drol’ka and used his left hand to pin him to the ground.
“NO! YOU DON’T UNDERTAND! WE WANT TO HELP! WE DON’T KILL HUMANS!”
Barry’s head snapped up at the sound of footsteps rushing toward him. Five drol’ka stepped out of the trees and spread out before him.
“Please!” the nearest drol’ka begged. “He’s telling the truth. We don’t hurt humans. We refuse to, and because of that, we are hated by the other Drol’ka Choth’Den.”
“Why should that matter to me? Why are you stalking around us if you mean no harm? Why not announce yourselves, instead of hiding in the shadows?” Barry asked.
“We weren’t looking in…we were looking out.” The same drol’ka answered. “We were watching for you.”
Barry cocked his head and squinted at the speaker. He didn’t understand why they would be watching for him.
“We spotted you a few days ago,” the speaker continued. “My brother…” he pointed at the drol’ka under Barry, “found your community and was heading back to tell us about it. On his way back, he spotted you moving through the woods. He explained how fast you were, and how he saw you jump up a tall cliff like it was nothing. We assumed you were a higher-level drol’ka. We feared you were going to cause trouble for those people, so we decided to try to protect them.”
“I don’t believe you. I’ve yet to meet a drol’ka that gives a fuck about humans.”
“It’s the truth. We’re all brothers. Same Drol’ka Choth’Den father…same human mother. Our father was a monster. A vile and cruel creature. He kept our mother alive because he liked the fiery red hair of her offspring. She bore him twelve children. Six of us were red-headed boys…the other six were girls, or had dark hair. Those he didn’t let live.”
Barry looked around at the drol’ka. Each was redheaded and very noticeably drol’ka. Each of them had a long jawline and wide square jaws. Their long arms hung down to their tree-trunk thighs. He reached down, and the drol’ka under him flinched as he peeled the drol’ka’s lips apart. The drol’ka had too many canines, and his front teeth angled slightly outward.
“You’re father…how much drol’ka blood did he have?” Barry asked.
“We aren’t sure, exactly,” the drol’ka beneath him answered. “More than half. We know his father was an Alpha Drol’ka Choth’Den…a bonafide OG, but we aren’t sure about our grandmother. We met her once when we were young. She is drol’ka, but less than our father.”
“That makes ya’ll around half. With that much drol’ka in you, human blood would greatly increase your vitality. I’m not sure you should be able to function without it.” Barry’s suspicions were obvious.
“If we were truly half drol’ka… descendants of a full-blood and a human, we would require it. But, we are not. Our father got half of his genetics from a mixed blood mother, and we got half from a fully human mother. We inherited far more human physiology than a true half-blood. We can consume food to sustain ourselves, but you are half right. Food keeps us going, but it does not bolster us like blood would,” the drol’ka on the far right explained.
“You run like you’ve had some…bolstering!” Barry accused.
“If we weren’t Abstainers, you wouldn’t have had to chase us down. Do you think six Drol’ka Choth’Den with this much drol’ka blood would be running from you? Even if we didn’t mistake you for a high pedigree Drol’ka Choth, the six of us would have no problem taking you down. Our own father couldn’t handle all of us…if we were blood drinkers.” The brother on the far left responded.
“What do you want with us?” Barry asked.
“Honeslty?” the brother in the middle asked.”We don’t want anything. We were only worried about your people.”
Barry nodded, but he still couldn’t trust the word of a drol’ka. He looked at the drol’ka he stood over and pondered what his next move would be.
“Which of you is the youngest?” Barry asked the group, but no answer came. “Answer me!”
Barry felt a tap on his leg and looked down to see the drol’ka pointing at himself.
“And who is the oldest?” Barry added.
“I am,” came the answer from the drol’ka in the middle.
Barry pulled the youngest drol’ka to his feet and motioned for the eldest to come to him. The drol’ka reluctantly walked over to him.
“The three of us are going back to my people. I do not speak for my community. They will hear your story, and then we will decide on your fate.”
The youngest brother tried to pull away from Barry, but he could not break Barry’s iron grip.
“Enough, Marcus!” The older brother ordered.
“But, we did nothing wrong, Dom!” Marcus pleaded.
“Our leader will know if you are telling the truth,” Barry assured. “If you are being honest, we will be back here tomorrow evening. You know the way, so lead on.” Barry nudged the two drol’ka forward. “The rest of you, stay here. Do not take a single step closer toward my home. I will be back at sunset tomorrow.”
One of the remaining brothers stepped toward Barry. The war cleaver appeared in Barry’s outstretched hand as it ripped a wide arc between the drol’ka and Barry. The cleaver disappeared as fast as it appeared, and the tops of three small scrub cedar trees tumbled to the ground.
“Killing ya’ll would save me the trouble of a return trip,” Barry warned. “I take no joy in killing…but I’m not afraid to lose sleep over it.”
The drol’ka retreated, and Barry nudged the two drol’ka again. This time, nobody tried to interfere. He directed the drol’ka toward the cliff face, and they headed off.
“Are you the one?” one of the brothers called after Barry. “Are you the one who wiped out the drol’ka at the prison?”
Barry stopped walking, but didn’t turn around.
“You are, aren’t you?” the drol’ka asked.
Barry spun around, but did not answer.
“They think you are one of the OGs. They say you have gone rabid with blood-lust and are taking out the other drol’ka, because you want all the remaining human blood for yourself. They whisper about you like you’re the Boogy Man. They won’t sleep without a watch, and they travel in groups, now. I don’t know what you are, because you’re no drol’ka, but they call you The Hunter.”
Barry laughed at the irony of the coincidental moniker.
“What are you?” the drol’ka asked.
Barry stopped laughing, and his face turned serious.
“I’m just that. I’m the Kru’ka.”
