Grem’ta. The Chained God.
“Return what you stole, Aelif!” he shouted, his voice echoing across the valley between them as the flame eruption that she’d passed before faded. “And you will have a quick death.”
Kurli didn’t bother exchanging taunts with him. Instead, she readied her bow and took aim. Grem’ta brought up a chain barrier that covered all of the Urkin. Based on the size of his Godcore, he was still Copper Tier, but he had completed the outer ring, meaning he had nine of the ten facets he needed for Bronze. Not that a normal mortal stood much of a chance against even a one facet Copper tier.
But she had to try.
Kurli reached into a different pouch in her inventory and tossed its contents ahead, then crouched lower and clicked her tongue, feeling her spring muscle click into place. With a single twitch, her legs unfurled, sending her flying into the air in a backflip that would have let her clear trees. She clicked her tongue again. Sonar and her antenna’s ability to sense air flow told her exactly where to aim, and she let loose a shot right over the barrier.
Grem’ta moved with inhuman speed, shifting on his chains, but the arrow still grazed his cheek. “Kill her!” he commanded his followers.
As soon as she hit the ground, Kurli was running, and Urkin pounded after her. Grem’ta followed them, his chain tentacles now moving like a spider’s legs to propel him after her.
“Come on,” Kurli muttered, risking a glance over her shoulder. “Work-”
There was a screech on the horizon, and Kurli allowed herself a fierce smile. The Urkin turned towards the sound, and Grem’ta bellowed in rage.
Not that bellowing would do much for him. The blood of the Hive would attract any members of the swarm for miles. These were simple soldier drones, and they were skittering ahead on all six legs, but there were a dozen of them and their mandibles clacked as they chittered their fury at the presumed death of one of their own.
“I’ll deal with this,” Grem’ta growled. “Get the Aelif!”
Exactly what she’d hoped for. The remaining five Urkin had been chasing her all day. Urkin were built more for short bursts of speed than sustained chases. They’d be much easier to deal with now that their God was distracted.
She just had to survive that burst of speed.
Kurli ran again, clicking her tongue every five steps. Her echolocation was only giving her a clear picture of what was directly ahead, and a vague sense of what was behind her, but it was enough for her to roughly know how close they were to closing in. They got within a few paces of her, enough for her to actually hear how heavily they were panting as they started to slow down.
Kurli flipped, bringing her legs up until her spring muscle clicked into place, kicking off the ground the moment she touched it. Clicking her tongue as rapidly as she could, Kurli let loose arrow after arrow as she arced forward. Two of them found Urkin skulls. No horns stopped these shots. Her targets collapsed like puppets with cut strings. One arrow missed its mark but hit the Urkin in the shoulder, causing him to collapse as he clutched at the wound and bleated in agony.
The two uninjured ones moved quickly. One stepped to the side and interposed himself between the wounded survivor and Kurli, and the other reached for his bow.
“Move and die,” Kurli said, her only remaining arrow pointed directly at the Urkin. “I have bigger problems than the two of you. Stay there and live.”
“You killed our brothers,” the one standing over the injured Urkin growled. “You hurt Crodma.”
“Crodma still lives,” Kurli said, making sure to speak slowly so they could understand. She wished she could talk to them in their language, but her mastery of Gulpish was far weaker than their mangling of her tongue. Which made what she was trying to do even more foolish, but there was no time to think about that. “You’ve lost two this day. Will you save the third?”
The two Urkin shared a look, and then glanced over their shoulders. In the distance, she could see a Hive drone being lifted into the air on two chains before being torn in twain. Its screams were only a faint buzz in the distance.
“He’ll need to find a pool of oil to clean off their blood, unless he wants the Hive to hunt him.”
“You speak truth,” said the one guarding his injured companion. He was the one who had two arrows sticking out of his horns. “You will...still pay for what you did.”
“Perhaps I will. But not today.” Keeping her arrow trained on the nearest Urkin, Kurli backed up towards the mountain until her back hit a barrier. Folding her legs under herself, she vaulted to the top of the cliff.
Only then did she dare breathe a sigh of relief. If they had called her bluff...the image of the Hive drone lifted in the air and torn in two flashed through her mind.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said softly to herself as she continued to climb. “You’re almost there.”
The cave she was looking for was another ten minutes of climbing up. Kurli started to click her tongue as she walked in, timing the clicks with her footsteps. There was no light beneath the mountain, but she wouldn’t need any.
It was always hard to explain to races without echolocation what it was like. The best description, when she was submerged in darkness, was that it was like seeing a raised outline of everything bigger than the tip of her finger. Smaller than that and she couldn’t make out the details. Also,
