The Scorp-Blood tribe needs to move to where the game is healthy, change their diet, or eradicate the mushrooms.
I smile. I’m going to be able to show the Scorp-Blood tribe that I can help them. I’ll save them, and prove that it was fate that brought me here. Then I suddenly cough hard again, and feel dizzy. The blackness in my eyes increases, and I struggle to stay awake and conscious.
If I pass out, I can’t show the tribe what happened. Even if Darok tells them the cause of the illness, what if they say it was… It was him that found it… Oh, Gods...
I feel so dizzy. Darok holds me to his chest as my mind goes blank. I can’t think anymore. I cough harder and harder, gasping for air. I need to stay awake long enough to warn the tribe not to eat the tainted meat, to…
Darok lays me on my back as I cough harder and harder, and I look up in horror. The sun is nearly at its peak. It blinds my eyes, but I can’t stop staring. The cough wracks me as I spit up blood and blackness from my lungs. Suddenly, I don’t know if I’m dying, or just falling into a deep coma… I suddenly remember the weakest of the Scorp-Blood tribe in the cavern, with their eyes already closed...
Darkness takes me – and no matter how hard I try to cling to reality, I can’t help but slip away into the blackness.
No, no, no…
21
Hadone
Diana watches as I duck a blow and tackle Forn to the ground. I’m the best grappler of all of us, but I know deep in my heart that Ton of the fish-eaters is stronger. This will not be a glorious battle. This will be a brutal fight to the death, and we’ll most likely lose.
The three of them have hated me ever since their woman left them. Her name was Ginger, and she left her tribe for me.
She haunts me to this day.
They believed that Ginger left this planet through a portal, because she wanted me, yet could not have me. She did want me – that part is true. Ginger professed her love for me, and when I told her I didn’t return her feelings, she threw herself from a cliff.
She killed herself, rather than return home.
I buried her, and yet her face still haunts me to this day.
It is true what Ton said. She left them because of me. I still feel the guilt every day of my life – bearing the knowledge that I was the cause of her death. Some part of me has been aching to repent for what I did to her all this time.
Some part of me thinks I should be beaten to a bloody pulp by Ton. Part of me still hurts every night for that woman – not because I had feelings for her, but because the fate she chose and the hole she left in our tribe still haunts me.
Maybe I should have pretended I loved her – if only so she might still be alive today.
Fear and horror come through the Bond from Darok. I stop my training instantly. We were all preparing for the battle of our lives, and yet I was not prepared for such raw emotion to come pouring through the Bond.
“Tammy! Something has happened to her!”
For much of my life, there was the call of the void reaching out to me – a siren’s song attracting me to oblivion that I’ve constantly had to fight against. Now that I have Tammy, it feels as though I finally want to live again. She brings me back a joy for life, a lust to be alive.
What if something has happened to her?
Forn stares, eyes wide as he looks over my shoulder. The sun is hanging high above us and sweat drips from my body. It is nearing the time when we’ll have to do battle for our lives. I turn, and gasp as I see Darok running towards us carrying the limp body of Tammy.
I can feel his grief through our Bond.
22
Forn
I lean over Tammy, trying to wake her up.
“What happened to her?” I growl, feeling anger at Darok. He was supposed to keep her safe. If we can’t keep our mate safe, then we are surely not worthy of her. We should die in the battle today if we can’t even guarantee that the future mother of our children will be in good health.
“She found out the reason we’re sick. There is some sort of poisonous fungus that the animals are eating. That’s why we all got better when we were searching for a new home for our tribe. It’s because we were eating untainted meat.”
I stare at Darok, realizing that this answer makes perfect sense.
“But we got too close to the mushroom,” he explains, “and she breathed in its spores… It’s an undiluted dose, and I fear…”
Hadone clenches his fist. “I deserve this. I deserve this for that dead woman. I kill everyone that loves me, and I deserve nothing but pain.”
Diana rushes to Tammy’s side. She holds her, crying. I look down at the second human female, feeling immense guilt that I couldn’t keep her friend safe.
The horn sounds. It’s a deeper horn that the one which is used to announce the presence of Aurelians. It’s the war horn – used only to declare that a battle against another tribe is imminent, or that there will be a fight to the death between members of our own tribe.
Today, it’s our turn to fight. A fight that we will likely lose.
I’d thought that if Tammy was on the sidelines, watching me fight, that perhaps she’d cheer me on. I’d hoped that seeing
