Page 12 of Feast

“Watch it!” the bearded ukkur snarled. “I’m trying to work here.”

“Sorry,” Muk said sheepishly, mopping the snow from his face. A second later, Slaine delivered a kick to his chest that sent his unsuspecting opponent sprawling back, almost into the fire.

Gunnar shook his head.

“With all the racket you idiots are making, it’s a wonder every nith patrol in the region hasn’t shown up,” he muttered.

“Nith?” Muk snorted as he rose and dusted the snow from his arms. “Let them come! It would be nice to have a real challenge for a change.”

At that barb, Slaine leapt with a roar, and the two ukkur continued their violent sparring match.

Gunnar turned back to his work, still shaking his head in exasperation.

Thusar remained silent through the exchange.

As the pack leader, he should probably say something, tell Slaine and Muk to take it easy, but he allowed them to continue duking it out. Thusar understood that violent energy was their way of dealing with the unexplainable frustration they were all feeling.

Something was missing from their lives.

Thusar didn’t know what it was, but he knew that they all sensed it.

Like every ukkur, Thusar and his pack brothers had all been slaves once, toiling day after day in the ksh farms operated by the nith. He and Gunnar had escaped together. It had been Gunnar’s doing. With his understanding of mechanical things, Gunnar had managed to pick the lock on their sleeping chamber, and they had run away in the night. Later, they had raided a poorly defended farm and helped Muk escape too.

Slaine was a different story. Somehow he had managed to escape on his own, but in the process he had sustained a severe trauma to his head. They had found him half crazed and nearly starved to death in the forest by himself. The only word they ever heard him speak was “Slaine,” which they assumed must be his name.

Ever since, the four of them had traveled the wild lands together as a pack, hunting for food and migrating with the changing seasons.

For years, the simple joy of freedom had been enough to keep them going.

But recently they had all begun to sense that there must be something more. None of them had expressed this thought verbally. They didn’t have to. Their bond as pack brothers was tight enough that they could read each other’s emotions.

Each of them tried to fill the void in different ways.

Muk and Slaine took it out on each other with their violent sparring matches. Gunnar did so by focusing all of his time and energy on designing better weapons, more elaborate traps, and testing various medicinal herbs.

As for Thusar, he did his best to bury his frustrations under the burden of leadership. It was his duty to hold the pack together as a group, to keep them strong.

Over time, that had been getting harder and harder to do.

Recently, however, they had heard rumors from other ukkur that they met during their travels. There were tales of a great gathering in the south. Ukkur packs from all over the planet were joining together into one great tribe to challenge the nith’s control of the planet.

It sounded insane.

As much as Thusar hated the nith, those bastards had the free ukkur outnumbered and out gunned. A handful of ukkur armed with stones and slings could never bring down an entire empire.

But there were other rumors that were even more amazing. Rumors that this growing tribe in the south had discovered a way to make more ukkur warriors.

Could it really be true?

Everyone knew that the nith made the ukkur. They built their slaves using technology that was beyond Thusar’s primitive understanding. But perhaps a very intelligent ukkur—Gunnar, for example—could learn how to use that technology.

Is that what was happening in the south?

If so, they would find out soon enough. After discussing it as a tribe, they had unanimously decided to find out what was going on down there. Whether or not they would actually join up with the larger tribe, however, remained to be seen.

That was the reason they had visited Rolf today.

As a courtesy, they had invited the old loner to accompany them southward on their journey. As expected, the crazy old fool had refused, and Thusar and his pack brothers had continued on their way.