of polkunu giving chase like this. They lived in packs and kept to themselves. That was what my father had told me.
Those eyes glowed. Before the darukkar could defend me with his sword, the polkunu reared back and brought those clawed talons down towards me.
I shielded my body with my arms, squeezing my eyes shut.
Hot pain bit at me hard. Searing and sharp.
My scream echoed through the forest.
Chapter Forty-Two
Her scream made familiar chilling fear sting my chest and squeeze my breath from my body. Familiar fear from when I’d watched Maeva jumping off the cliff in the saruk. Fear that made me want to fall to my knees. Fear that made me feel like I was spiraling.
Only this fear was so much worse because I couldn’t see my seffi. And I knew what dangers lurked in this forest. In the darkness, the forest was too dense. Below me, Roon charged forward faster, as did the group of darukkars I’d brought with me, though they were having a difficult time of navigating the trees.
When I’d returned to the horde from my patrol to find Maeva gone, her apprentice, Essir, told me she’d gone. The poor male went a sickly white when I growled at him, demanding where. He’d told me she’d mentioned something about adir trees, though he’d stammered out that he’d never heard of them.
She’d left the horde with only a single guard for protection, had ventured into the forest, and night had fallen. There had been no sign of her since.
Hanniva, Kakkari, let her be unharmed, I prayed, gritting my teeth, ice spreading through my veins. I will do anything for you, if only she is unharmed.
Adir trees. I knew where they grew. And as we approached the clearing, with Roon’s hot breaths billowing silver in front of him, I heard the hissing of a polkunu.
I heard the ringing of Dakkari steel scraping off hardened scales. Heard a male grunt and smelled the metallic stench of blood. Maeva’s? Nik, it couldn’t be.
But as we drew closer and closer, I spied her lying on the ground and my fear tripled until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The only reason I didn’t lose my vokking mind was I saw her moving, trying to push up from the ice though something dark was spilled on the forest floor, making it slippery.
Her blood? Or the polkunu’s?
“Maeva!” I bellowed and her head snapped up. I saw the fear in her eyes, coupled with pain.
The darukkars swarmed the clearing just as the polkunu whipped Maeva’s guard across the chest with its long tail. The guard went flying, hitting a tree trunk before slumping to the ground, his sword dropped.
The polkunu hissed and roared when it saw us. I saw its hesitation, its red eyes flickering at all of us, snapping its jaws to warn us away. I didn’t even need to steer Roon towards Maeva. Our loyal beast put himself between my seffi and the polkunu, stomping his clawed hooves into the ground, letting out a warning all his own.
Like me, Roon would die for Maeva. He would do anything to protect her because he was bonded to her just as much as he was bonded to me. Pyrokis had long memories and once bonded, they would never forget their true masters.
When the polkunu charged Roon, my pyroki reared back, going up onto two legs, and with a swiftness that didn’t surprise me, he stomped his own clawed hooves right across the approaching beast’s face.
The polkunu shook its head, a cry echoing around the forest, bright claw marks across its face, just missing its eyes. It stumbled back but it didn’t look like it was backing down.
With a grim realization, I called out, “Darukkars, venuri ji vorak.”
Protect the horde.
The polkunu was a danger so close to us. And it was…changed. This was the second polkunu we’d encountered that seemed strangely aggressive and violent. The first had been further south, near my father’s saruk. The beasts were usually very difficult to hunt if we were in their territory because they were timid creatures and ran when they spied potential predators.
I didn’t watch the efficiency of my darukkars as they circled the polkunu. I took no pleasure in giving that order but the horde came first. And this polkunu had attacked Maeva and her guard. It was a danger to us all.
I jumped off Roon’s back, hearing the darukkars as they drove the polkunu away from the clearing. Roon stood guard as I sank down towards