Page 2 of Feral Tamed

The ones on the big human ship had been rescued, taken in by the Kertinals whom I was told would treat them right. But this ship… The Kertinals wouldn’t bother going to find it, so we were. Jakar was hoping we’d find more human females so that he could get himself a mate, just like three of our brothers had already done. I couldn’t believe that Thorin was one of those brothers, he’d been so angry and sarcastic before he met Camila. Now… Granted he was still a sarcastic bastard, but he was smiling all the time.

As soon as I with my feet firmly planted on the ground, I drew in a deep breath of the planet’s air. Taking stock of the many scents, the trees, the plants, the wildlife. The most prevalent scent was still that of the smoke from this crashed portion of the ship we’d located. I took in the chunk of the hull, which even to my untrained eyes appeared as if it could only be a fraction of the actual ship, then I noted the three stasis pods that had spilled out of that broken shell.

“Roasted meat. Decay. That is not good, is it Fierce Hunter?” Snarl said as he sniffed at the air from a spot at my side. His long tail swished back and forth behind him, and his paws were digging into the soft soil, he was eager to run, to explore. “Go check the perimeter of this crash site, see what you pick up,” I told him. Tongue lolling out of his fanged maw, he gave me a happy smirk when he dashed off into the underbrush, completely disappearing. Even though this foliage was purple and pink, his shadowy black fur made him blend almost entirely.

One stasis pod had a body dangling out, while the most intact looking of the three smelled heavily of burned meat. The third pod though… that one intrigued me. It was on its side and when I walked around it, I immediately saw the indent of where a body had lain next to it. Someone had been here, had they gotten up and walked away? Or had a predator gotten hold of them?

I trailed my eyes over the ground, noticing the footsteps, they went all over the crash site. Small enough that I had a feeling they were from a female, even if she did wear some kind of shoe with a heavy tread. I couldn’t pick up her individual scent yet, covered beneath the heavy scent of the smoke that had blanketed this area.

“What did you discover?” Sunder asked me. For a big guy, he knew how to walk quietly; I had good ears though and had picked up his approaching footsteps. Crouched at the edge of the site, I appraised the set of steps that was leading up into the mountains. I had a feeling that this female had walked off on her own, wisely thinking to leave this place where the risk of a sudden flood was quite real. Or so we’d been informed by the Vagabond’s ship IA, Akri.

Pointing at the steps, I explained my discovery. Almost immediately Jakar popped up on my other side. “A female? She walked off? We have to go find her!” he eagerly exclaimed, practically bouncing on his feet as he scanned the thick foliage around us. When I pointed out the tracks again, he stared dutifully but I could tell he couldn’t see what I was seeing.

“We do need to find her,” Sunder agreed. “Any idea how long ago she left?” I shrugged. Not a clue. I had no idea how long ago this ground had last seen rain, how long it would hold a footstep. This wasn’t the Mother, where I’d spend the first eight years of my life learning to hunt at my father’s side. And this wasn’t Aura or Yulae where I’d lived for most of the rest of it as a slave. I knew how the ground behaved on those planets, I’d have been able to give an accurate assessment, but not here.

“The small steps make me think she’s not going fast. We can catch up regardless of her head start,” I assured Sunder. Just then, Snarl darted out of the underbrush, his nose to the ground as he sniffed. He was filled with excitement, long tail lashing behind him, curling and twisting. His mouth open in a fleming response, trying to soak up as much of the intriguing scent he’d caught. “I smell Fierce Female,” he said to me.

Sunder turned to wave at Thorin and Camila, who were standing next to the body dangling out of the broken stasis pod. The human female waved back with a grim look on her face, “Found a survivor?” She sounded hopeful, I would be too if this was about finding another of my species. In all my years as a gladiator and slave, I had not come across a single other of my kind though. So I didn’t hold out any hope for that.

“Cam, you’re in charge,” Sunder told the female. “You and Thorin guard the ship with Kitan until we get back. Fierce has a trail on a possible survivor. We’re checking it out.” My blood got pumping immediately. Yes, the hunt was on. I had already turned back to the trail, jogging up it after Snarl.

Chapter 2

Hina

I was starting to think I’d never find a spot with fresh drinking water. I’d been walking for hours and while I’d been conservative with the small amount of water in my flask, it was nearly empty now. The trees and plants around me seemed to follow most of the expected patterns, so I didn’t feel too disoriented on this alien planet. I’d picked up a few nuts and berries along the way that I had noticed seemed to be abundant in the area, and which a bird-like species seemed to enjoy eating. I was going to try those in a safe and controlled manner when I got myself a source of water and a safe spot to camp.

When I heard the gurgle of a little stream, I quickened my pace, rushing through the dense thick purple shrubbery. It opened into a small clearing where a tiny stream of water trickled down from a pile of big black and gray rocks, it slithered over pink mosses, into a sand and rock basin before draining away a little further along into another big rock crevasse.

I hurried across the spongy moss on the ground and dropped to my knees at the side of the small pool. It was completely clear and I saw no signs of any animals, no fish or bugs in the water itself. There were no tracks leading to the pool as far as I could see, maybe the moss hid those signs though. I drank the last of the water in my flask carefully, then filled both of them up and tucked them into my improvised knapsack.

I’d have to boil that water first before I risked drinking it, but if I could locate a good spot to find shelter nearby, I’d at least have the basics covered. Lifting my head, I looked around, studying the nearest rock formations for a likely cave. The higher I had climbed, the less tall the foliage had gotten. Now it was mostly shrubs and fern-like plants, higher up the mountain I could see that this gave way to thick, hardy grass and more moss. I shouldn’t climb any higher than this, or I’d lose the abundance of plant life at this level, plants that would sustain me with food if I could figure out what was safe to eat.

My luck held when I set out for a plausible rock formation, slipping between more dense shrubs and tall purple ferns until not even two minutes later I stood in front of a small rock opening. A cave. On one side the ground dropped away rather sharply, the other rose up to the mountain peak, thickly overgrown with some kind of bramble, heavy with juicy pink berries.

There was a small ledge around the side of that cave opening, like a path dipping around the side of that rock wall. Tempting me to go take a look, but that cave was more promising. My eyes had already dipped to the ground, trying to figure out if I could spot any tracks leading up to the opening. My biggest worry was if there was already someone living in that cave. If it was occupied by a predator…

Right on cue, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I had the feeling I was being watched, a primal, incredibly instinctive feeling. I spun around, searching through the brambles on my right, the shrubs I’d just climbed through at my back. I couldn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything there.

Those big purple and pink fronts shifted and moved. Oh boy… I saw a pair of red glowing eyes and then a second pair of yellow ones a little further away. That was not good. The red ones blinked and moved closer, slinking low at the ground, blinking in and out of sight as they passed behind leaves. That was not a small animal, the size of those eyes, the height they were at… It had to be a predator. And those yellow eyes… They were above my freaking head and those shrubs were tall, but not tall enough to support any kind of weight. I’d seen how bendy and sleek those branches were. Whoever those yellow eyes belonged to. It was big.

I backed away slowly, cursing inside, had I walked right into a predator’s den? Had I survived execution and bizarre spaceship crash, only to die an alien predator’s meal? I swallowed roughly, my fingers tightening around the walking stick I’d found. It was a flimsy weapon, but maybe a good solid whack would distract them long enough for me to make a run for it.

First, the creature with the red glowing eyes stepped out of the bushes. A big creature, it was completely black and about the size of a tiger. Its head was an odd cross between a bear and a cat, with rounded ears and a wide stubby snout but the keen, sharp intelligence of a cat, and an impressive set of silver whiskers.

A long tail swished behind it, all of its thick fur a midnight black that seemed to absorb light. Its body sinuous and graceful, a little too slinky, too sleek. It threaded the edge between extremely uncanny and beautiful. With that mouth full of sharp white fangs, I was certain it was able to rip out my throat in a single second. At least I’d probably be instantly dead, small comfort but I was on borrowed time anyway…

The creature paused just outside of the shrubs, cocking its head this way and that, studying me. I couldn’t help but keep on staring, my heart pounding furiously in my throat, my legs trembling. What the heck was it doing? Deciding which part of me looked the juiciest?

The shrubs rustled, my head snapping up at the sound. In my panic at seeing the weird cat/bear, I had forgotten about the second creature, the bigger one. He stepped out of the shrubs, and it was definitely a he. Yellow eyes focused on me in an unblinking stare. His skin was streaked in the same purple and pink as the plants around us, making him blend almost entirely with the bushes. But as he took another step my way, his skin seemed to go more muted, sliding from those vibrant colors into a more muted dark gray.

Oh… He was tall, close to seven feet. With muscles stacked upon muscles, his bare chest rippling from thick pectorals into a row of impressive abs, and those neat v-shaped lines arrowing from his hips down into a black leather kilt. There was a strap for a bag crossing his chest and a belt with several pouches draped around his hips, a freaking ax weighing it down on one side. Shit, this place was inhabited and I’d run into one of the locals. Somehow I doubted he was friendly or maybe he was going to try and be too friendly.

I backed up a step, my eyes flicking between this alien male and his pet hunting animal. There was a sharp white ridge rising from a point on his forehead, over his skull to the back. A mane of undulating strands covered his skull on either side, I wasn’t quite sure if that was just hair waving in the wind, or if those were thicker and moved all on their own. He looked so alien, and when he opened his mouth and started talking in a strange, guttural language, I glimpsed razor-sharp teeth.

I couldn’t even parse the tone of his words, whatever intent that was there, my instinct to flee just took over. I spun on my heels, dashed forward, and at the very last moment decided not to leap headfirst into a dark cave. I dashed around the rock, over that small narrow ledge, rocks dangerously clattering over the cliff at my side.

The edge terminated so suddenly into a gaping black hole that I had no time to brake. I went over that edge, pinwheeling my arms with a frightened scream.