Feast: A Rough & Twisted Sci-Fi Romance Page 5

  She may not be an ukkur, but she had a warrior’s heart and a hunter’s skill. She was not going to make things easy for these nith bastards.

  That left her with the other two options. She could make a run for it and hope her legs could carry her faster than the nith could follow.

  But Rolf had explained to her that the nith were masters of the dark arts of technology. They had weapons called guns that could throw fire and kill from a distance. That must be what those metal tube-like weapons in their hands were.

  If Ika tried to flee, these nith would gun her down before she reached the edge of this clearing.

  That only left one more option open to her.

  Stand and fight.

  The nith standing over Ika leaned down and reached out one black, scaly hand to grab her.

  Ika realized her spear had fallen from her hand upon impact. It was lying in the snow a few feet away, just out of reach. She would need a different tactic.

  In a flash, she drew the flint knife from the sheath at her hip and drove it hard into the middle of the nith’s reaching palm. The nith screeched in pain and stumbled backward, clutching at its wounded hand. Ika’s knife was yanked from her grasp in the process.

  Now she was unarmed, and the other nith were closing in.

  Ika rolled to the side and grabbed her spear. She came up with a roar and jabbed the point at the first nith that she saw.

  She was quick, but the nith was just a little quicker, and it turned away from her attack. Instead of driving the sharp point into the creature’s black heart, Ika only dealt a glancing blow to the shoulder.

  Still, she managed to rip the fabric of the creature’s uniform and cut its scaly flesh, drawing a spurt of black blood and a squeal of agony from the monster.

  Not bad.

  In a matter of seconds, Ika had wounded two of these creeps. Maybe the nith weren’t so fearsome after all.

  There was a sound from behind her. A crunch of a booted foot in the snow. One of the nith was trying to sneak up on her.

  With a warrior’s cry, Ika spun around, slashing blindly with the spear.

  Scaly, claw-tipped fingers caught the shaft, stopping the spear mid swing. With a twist of its wrist, the nith broke the wooden shaft in two, tossing the spear tip away into the snow.

  Okay, perhaps Ika had underestimated her attackers.

  But she wasn’t about to give up.

  She drew the splintered spear shaft back and swung it like a club at the face of the nith who had broken it. The creature blocked the strike with its forearm.

  Not good.

  The nith’s hand shot forward, clutching a fistful of Ika’s hair in its scaly grasp. Her roots burned, and her eyes blurred with tears of pain.

  Still, Ika refused to give in. She would fight to the end.

  She would use the only weapon left at her disposal.

  Her teeth.

  Ika’s teeth had always been a source of shame and feelings of inadequacy. A proper ukkur like Rolf had sharp upper fangs and curving tusks that protruded from the lower jaw. By contrast, Ika’s little teeth were blunt, paltry things.

  But right now, her teeth were all she had, and she intended to use them.

  Ignoring the sting of her pulled hair, Ika twisted in the nith’s grasp and chomped down hard on the flesh of its wrist, which was exposed by the sleeve of its uniform.

  The nith yowled in pain.

  Blunt though Ika’s teeth might have been, they were enough to draw nith blood. Warm coppery fluid filled her mouth, and her stomach lurched in repulsion, but she only bit down harder, refusing to let go.

  “Shoot it!” the bitten nith shrieked. “Shoot the rotten beast!”

  “No,” another nith voice chittered. “I want it alive. There’s good meat on those bones. Tranquilize it.”

  Tranquilize? Ika did not know that word.

  It must have something to do with the sudden sting that nipped at the side of her neck. It reminded her of the tizrak that had stung her when she was a child. But that time, the pain had lasted for days, even after Rolf had applied a healing herbal salve. This sting, however, dissipated almost immediately, replaced by a warm, numb feeling that spread all through her body.

  Ika’s muscles became stiff and insensate. Her jaws relaxed, letting go of the nith’s mangled wrist, and the creature drew back with a whimper.

  Ika was totally numb now. As unfeeling as a pillar of ice. She didn’t even realize that she was toppling backward until she saw the stars in the sky streaking across her field of vision.

  As she fell, Ika thought of Rolf. She thought of how he would wake soon to find her gone. He would search frantically for her, but it would already be too late. The nith would have taken her away.

  All because of her stupid curiosity and disobedience.

  I’m sorry, Rolf. I’m so very sorry.

  Ika collapsed backward, and her stiff body hit the snowy ground with a hard whump. But her mind just seemed to keep on falling, tumbling away into a neverending darkness.

  CHAPTER 8

  When Ika came to, dawn was already breaking over the treetops, filling the air with a hazy golden light. She had not been unconscious very long. Maybe half an hour at most.

  But gods, a lot had changed in that short time.

  The cord holding Ika’s long hair had been removed, and her messy locks now spilled over her face, obscuring her vision. Even worse, her clothes had been stripped away, leaving her bare skin exposed to the burning cold wind that ghosted across her body. Already, that chill was seeping into the marrow of her bones, and she was shivering uncontrollably.

  The shivering was not just from the cold air, however.

  It was also due to fear.

  Ika was in a cage. An extremely small cage that did not allow her to move at all. She was on her knees, with her torso pressed against the tops of her thighs and her hands bound securely behind her back with steel shackles.

  In this position, her naked butt was raised, exposing the shameful anatomy between her legs. The anatomy that made her not an ukkur. That was the least of her concerns in this predicament, but it added insult to injury.

  Plus, whenever the cold wind gusted through the steel mesh of her cage, it stung all those sensitive places especially badly.

  Ika was trapped.

  Caught like a wild animal.

  Her cage was sitting on the snowy ground, but this was not the same place where the nith had attacked her. They must have carried her some distance through the woods while she was unconscious.

  There was a machine nearby, a gleaming metal cart that hovered several feet above the ground. A cart with no wheels and no beasts to pull it. The nith really were masters of black magic, it seemed. Rolf had told Ika about such things, but she had scarcely believed him.

  She believed him now, however.

  Rolf.

  The thought of her brave and steadfast protector made Ika’s heart beat faster. She didn’t know her exact location, but if she was close enough to the den, perhaps Rolf would hear her cries.

  She drew a deep breath and tried to scream, but hardly any sound came out. Only a faint, muffled whimper.

  Ika realized that some kind of weird metallic mask was affixed over her mouth and nose. It must be another example of nith magic, because something inside the mask was keeping her lips and tongue from working. She could breathe well enough, but speaking proved impossible.

  Ika’s fear transitioned into anger. She shook her body as much as the confines of the small cage would allow, rattling the steel mesh in the process.

  A knot of black-clad nith were standing near the hovering vehicle. They were obviously the same nith that had incapacitated her before because some of them now sported white bandages that stood out in stark contrast to their dark uniforms.

  Ika felt a rush of malicious pleasure as she remembered how she had at least hurt a few of her captors before they had subdued her.

  Little difference it had made in the end though. Sh
e had still ended up like this—naked, bound, and freezing.

  Ika shook again, banging her body against the inside of her cage.

  The nith turned in her direction and regarded her with a kind of amusement. They chittered to each other, a few words that Ika could not quite make out, and then two of them approached her cage.

  One of the approaching nith was the biggest of the group, and his black uniform was trimmed with silver around the edges. That one must be the leader. The one who followed after him was carrying a black baton tipped with metal prongs. His wrist was wrapped in white bandages. That was the one that Ika had bitten. His beady eyes glared at her with a hunger for revenge.

  “Szzkkktt! Look at me, human,” the leader said.

  With a great effort, Ika raised her eyes and looked through the curtain of her hair at the hideous nith towering over her. Its long reptilian snout was covered in a tough hide of jet black scales, and its thin lips peeled back to reveal double rows of ivory fangs. A pair of beady eyes stared down at her with cruel condescension. The nith looked upon her as nothing more than an animal.

  But what was that word it had used to address her?

  Human?

  Ika had never heard that word before, but something about it made her skin crawl with a creepy feeling.

  “Good,” the nith hissed. “Now tell me, human, where is your mark?”

  Why was this thing questioning her? Her mouth was locked behind this weird face mask that robbed her of her powers of speech. And with her hands bound behind her back, Ika had no way to communicate at all. Even if she had known what mark the nith was talking about, she would have no way to point it out to the ugly creature.

  But as soon as it asked the question, the nith took from its pocket a small square device and pressed a button.

  Immediately, the pressure behind Ika’s face mask went away, and she realized that she was now able to move her lips and tongue again.

  Was this nith magic?

  Ika didn’t know or care. All that mattered was that her voice had been restored, and she was going to put it to good use.

  “HELP! HELP M—”

  She had tried to scream for help, but as soon as she started to do so, the nith pressed the button on its handheld device again, and once more Ika’s lips and tongue were re-paralyzed, silencing her voice.

  The nith leader nodded to the underling who was eagerly standing nearby, black baton in hand. That underling sneered and took a step forward, pressing the baton through the steel mesh of Ika’s cage.

  The cold metal tip of the baton press against Ika’s naked rump, and a searing pain crackled through her body. It felt as though she had been struck by a bolt of lightning. Her muscles spasmed and tears of agony spilled from her eyes. She wanted to scream, but the mask forced her to suffer in silence.

  After a few seconds of that torture, the pain stopped, and the baton pulled back from the cage. The nith underling who had zapped her cackled and chittered with sadistic glee.

  If Ika weren’t trapped in this cage, she would gut that rotting bastard.

  Now, however, all she could do was cast a hateful glare through tear-blurred eyes.

  The nith leader spoke once more.

  “Scream like that again and you’ll get more of the same. Now, I will repeat my question, slowly and clearly this time so that your puny human brain can comprehend it: Where. Is. Your. Mark?”

  The nith clicked the button of its handheld control, and Ika felt her voice being restored again.

  This time, she resisted the urge to scream.

  But she also had no idea how to answer the nith’s question. Mark? What mark was the monster talking about?

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Ika stammered.

  She was scared that she would get zapped with the wand again, but the leader stayed the underling’s hand.

  “Come now, human,” the nith leader said. “Surely you must have escaped from one of our facilities. Szkktt!”

  Ika shook her head in confusion.

  “Maybe she is from the southern territories,” the nith underling said. “Supposedly the ukkur down there have begun breeding with humans.”

  “Sskkkzzztt! Is this true, human? Have you traveled here from the southern territories?”

  Ika was about to tell them no, but she caught herself. There was no reason for her to tell these nith the truth. If she told them that she had spent her whole life in this area, then they might find out about Rolf and go looking for him too. Ika didn’t want that to happen, so instead she chose to remain silent.

  “Kzzz, the human is being reticent,” the leader said. “Kkkkttzz! See if you can loosen its tongue…”

  The underling gave Ika another jolt from the electrified baton. Her body convulsed against its restraints, and white-hot pain exploded behind her eyes. The nith zapped her again and again until Ika thought she would pass out from the agony, but she still refused to speak.

  At last, the leader waved at the underling to lay off.

  “We waste time,” the leader hissed. “Besides, we do not wish to cook this meat prematurely.”

  Both nith cackled disgustingly at this joke that Ika did not understand.

  Cook? Meat?

  Were these monsters planning on cooking and eating her?

  “Zkkkt! Let us proceed then. Load the human meat into the storage compartment.”

  Another underling ran over, and together with his partner they lifted Ika’s cage and set her in the bed of the hovering vehicle.

  At last Ika broke down. “Where are you taking me?”

  She felt the mask tighten around her lips again, silencing her voice. The nith leader came into view again, closer to eye level now.

  “We are taking you back to where you belong, human. To the facility. To the slaughterhouse.”

  Slaughterhouse? Ika had never heard that term before, but she knew its constituent parts. A house was a kind of building, like a den. To slaughter meant to kill an animal for food. Ika gasped behind the mask and her eyes rounded with fear. The nith read that emotion on her face and chuckled.

  “That’s right, human. We are going to use you for meat. Delicious meat. Kzzzssttk!”

  Ika shivered at the nith’s words. Images conjured in her mind. Nightmare images of nith feasting on her bloody, mangled body.

  “Let’s go,” the leader called to his companions.

  The nith all loaded into the seats of the vehicle, the engine rumbled to life, and they started to drive away through the snowy forest. Mentally, Ika bid farewell to the environment that had been her lifelong home, bid farewell to her beloved Rolf too, and tried her best to steel herself for the fate that lay ahead of her.

  The vehicle picked up speed, and the trees whooshed past in the growing morning light.

  Suddenly, a sharp whistling sound came from the forest, and a thrown spear landed square in the nith leader’s heart, puncturing all the way through the back of its seat. Green-black blood spattered over Ika’s face and skin, and she screamed silently behind her mask.

  The other nith went into a panic, chittering and hissing excitedly.

  The vehicle sped up as the driver punched the throttle to escape. The passengers raised their weapons and began firing aimlessly into the shadows of the surrounding forest.

  Another sharp whistle. This time an arrow skewered the driver’s throat.

  “Kzzsskktt!”

  The vehicle swerved wildly. A boulder loomed in front of them, and the front end smashed into it at full speed, crumpling the engine compartment and sending the remaining passengers, Ika included, hurtling through the air.

  Ika’s cage spun wildly. Her vision blurred with a swirling pattern of ground, sky, ground, sky.

  Her heart lurched so high into her throat it felt like she might vomit it out.

  There were sounds of guttural screams and snapping bones as the airborne nith bodies crashed into tree trunks and stones.

  Ika braced for her own inevitable impact.

 
; But instead of a brutal, bone-crunching landing, she came to a cushioned stop. When her dizzied senses finally finished reeling, she realized that she had not actually hit the ground.

  Her cage had been caught by a pair of strong and skillful hands.

  Ika was looked up through the bars of her cramped little cage and found herself staring into the face of an ukkur.

  A handsome face with one scarred eye.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gunnar stared down at the animal shivering in its cage on the floor of the cave where they were now hiding. They had gotten a good fire going, and the animal’s smooth, hairless skin shone like red gold in the warm glow of the flames. The creature had a peculiar scent which the smoke and aroma of charred wood did not hide. It was a scent that caused an inexplicable throb in Gunnar’s balls.

  “So…what the rot is this thing?” Thusar asked.

  Among his ukkur brethren, Gunnar was respected for his vast knowledge of all things natural and unnatural. He knew all of the trees and plants of the forests and fields. He knew which ones to eat, which to use for medicine, and which to avoid as poison. He knew every animal too, could identify them by their tracks and their droppings. He even had some mastery of nith technology, which he and his pack brothers occasionally scavenged from raiding nith patrols.

  There was no question about the world that Gunnar could not answer.

  Until now.

  They had found this creature bound and caged by the nith. As a matter of fact, the pack leader Thusar had caught the animal’s cage as it was flung out of the wrecked nith vehicle.

  Gunnar and his pack brothers had made short work of the few nith survivors, slitting the bastard’s throats with their stone knives. They had rummaged through the remains of the vehicle, though there had been little of value there.

  After that, they had departed the scene of the wreck. Slaine and Muk carried the cage between them as they ran. They returned to their campsite long enough to gather their goods, and then they had made a quick hike to this cave, which they had spotted on the previous day.

  It was the perfect place to inspect their prize without interruptions.

  By the time they reached the cave, the naked creature had been shivering violently from the cold, so they had built a fire and placed the cage nearby to warm the freezing animal.