five times the size of a full-grown Dakkari male. It ran on its thick, scaled hind legs, its long neck tucked as it began to race away, blindingly fast.
Back east, away from the saruk.
A small blessing at the very least.
“Darukkars,” came a guttural, dark voice, rising into the sky. “Run it down!”
The order was followed by the battle cries of horde warriors. Even from this distance, I saw the Dakkari male take off on his pyroki, quickly followed by ten Dakkari warriors, also on pyrokis. The ground shook with the vibration of them following the polkunu.
Not my father. Or Nevir, I realized.
These males were part of a horde. Darukkars that were horde-bred, not saruk-bred.
I didn’t have time to think about why a group of darukkars were so close to the Okkili outpost. As far as I knew, no Vorakkar had claimed the south lands for the harvest season, though I guessed these males might be part of a scouting party for the frost.
A pained moan met my ears and I pumped my arms, racing to the small gathering of males that remained behind. At the edge of the Isida forest, three males were crouching around a darukkar lying on the ground, four pyrokis hovering close by.
It was the pyrokis that announced my presence—kicking and stomping into the earth, one of them beginning to charge at me. I skidded to a halt, holding in a gasp, when one of the darukkars unsheathed his sword, approaching me quickly as he nudged his pyroki back.
Holding up my hands, I watched as the darukkar’s brow furrowed when he saw me. No doubt, he hadn’t expected a human and I feared that he’d never seen one before.
“I am a healer at the Okkili saruk,” I told him quickly, my breath coming out in quick pants as I tried to regain it. “Let me help him.”
The male looked away from me, his gaze going west, in the direction I’d come from and where the saruk lay, nudged up against the cliffs. We couldn’t see it from here, however.
In the distance, I heard the hissing cry from the polkunu, heard echoing shouts reverberate over the land as the darukkars fought against it. I was thankful they were keeping it away from the saruk at the very least.
“Lysi,” the male finally said, lowering his sword. “Help him.”
I nodded, sliding past, my hands already digging through my satchel. It was a lucky thing I had some supplies with me, as I was planning to restock my stores in the mokkira’s soliki that morning. I was planning to fill the rest of the space with kioni from the forest, but that would wait.
“Leave us,” the male ordered the remaining two darukkars. “Go to the Vorakkar and assist him.”
Vorakkar?
My brow furrowed at the words, as the two males immediately departed, heading east, but then my attention was drawn to the Dakkari male lying in a pool of black blood.
Dropping to my knees, I ripped off my fur shawl, exposing my shoulders and the flesh my bandeau didn’t cover to the cold winds. The male’s eyes were wild with pain, his teeth gritted. A large slash ran down his arm, exposing dark bone, an endless flow of blood flooding out from his veins.
“Can you heal him?” the other Dakkari male asked. If he wasn’t the Vorakkar, I assumed he was the pujerak, the Vorakkar’s second-in-command, to give orders so easily to the darukkars.
One of the first things the mokkira had ever taught me was to never make promises when it came to healing. Kakkari wrote the fates of her people long before they came into this world. She could take them as easily as she gave them life.
Like Lomma, I thought, my lips pressing together. Before my mother had died, eight years ago, she had been healthy. Vibrant. One day she was alive, laughing. The next she was dead, cold.
Afterwards, the mokkira told me Kakkari wanted her back, had called her home. And only after Lomma died did he agree to train me as one of his apprentices, though I’d been begging him for years.
Swallowing, I rummaged through my satchel, my hand closing around the vial I recognized by shape.
I didn’t answer the male’s question.
I thought I could heal him. I knew what to do with a wound this deep. But I wouldn’t give assurances that might not manifest, especially when it came to Kakkari’s will.
The ground began to vibrate again. With a quick glance up, just to ensure the polkunu wasn’t