And sprayed.

Screaming was her first instinct as the reeking spray washed over her. Cursing was her second. Turning around, dropping her breeches and spraying the thing right back quickly fought its way to the fore, but she rejected it as soon as she felt the tree still against her back.

At the other side, a body slumped to the earth with a splash as it landed in a puddle of something Kataria had no wish to identify. The sound of Xhai’s growl and her heavy iron boots stomping off quickly followed and faded in short order.

Kataria allowed herself to breathe and quickly regretted it as the roach’s stench assaulted her nose. The insect chittered, satisfied, and scurried into the forest’s underbrush. Still, she counted herself lucky that the only thing to locate her was a roach.

A roach that sprays from its anus, she reminded herself, wiping the stuff from her face. And the longfacesalmost found you that time.

She grunted at her own thoughts; the longfaces were crawling over the island, roaming the forest and its edges in great, noisy droves. They were searching, she had learned from the few times they deigned to speak in a language she could understand. For what, she had no idea and she didn’t care. She was on a search of her own, one that could not be compromised by the addition of bloodthirsty, purple-skinned warrior women.

The Spokesman stick in her hand reminded her of it, with a warm assurance that it had tasted many human bones before.

She stared down at it contemplatively. The s’na shict s’ha, her father said, often claimed that their famed sticks earned their names for the fact that each one possessed the faintest hints of the Howling. The trees they were carved from drank deeply of shictish blood spilled in their defence. They carried the memories of the dead, perpetual reminders of the duties that every shict carried.

As Kataria stared at the white feather tied to it, she suspected the power of the Spokesman was likely a lot simpler than that.

Inqalle infested her mind, in words and thoughts alike. She had slipped in on the Howling, sank teeth into Kataria’s thoughts, and she could still feel them there.

But this was not such an awful thing.

Inqalle’s words only persisted because truth was always like venom: once injected, it could not be removed until the proper steps had been taken to cure it. Kataria knew this, just as she knew that what Inqalle had said was true.

For too long had she been comfortable telling herself she was a shict while acting so unlike one. How could any shict call herself such when she stared for hours over the sea, watching …?

No. Hoping, she corrected herself. You werehoping that one of them would come up on shore and you could go back to the way things were. Those days are over. You always wanted them to be over, right?

She didn’t answer herself.

Maybe … thisis a gift from Riffid, she told herself. Maybe thisis how you prove yourself to Inqalle. No, not to Inqalle. To yourself. She shook her head. No, not to yourself …

She looked down at the white feather, frowned.

Not just to yourself.

The Spokesman stick was heavy with purpose, eager to be used upon unsuspecting human skulls. It reminded her why this had to be the way. It reminded her of the sensations she had felt in the company of her companions. Former companions, she corrected herself.

They had infected her, deafened her to the Howling. They had taken something from her. This was how she would take it back.

She had found their trail earlier. She could follow it, descend upon them when they weren’t paying attention. Two swift cracks at the base of the skull. They would die immediately. They wouldn’t be able to ask her why. She could do it, she told herself. If she could avoid the longfaces’ patrols, she could sneak up on them. She could kill them.

If you could, the thought entered her mind involuntarily, you would have done it long ago.

She shook her head, growled.

Something in the forest growled back.

She froze, hearing the footsteps. Her ears twitched, angling from left to right, absorbing each noise. Heavy feet fell upon the earth with the ungainly disquiet of a predator glutted. Nostrils drew in deep breaths, sniffing about the woods. The growl, a deep chest-born noise, became a shrill cackle. Gooseflesh grew upon her body.

The sikkhun, she thought. They said something about a sikkhun. She swallowed hard. What the hell is a sikkhun?

And in the sounds that followed, she realised she didn’t want to know. She heard a sharp ripping sound; the stench of blood filled her nostrils. Slurping followed, meat rent from bone and scooped into a pair of powerful jaws. Blood dripped softly, hitting the ground with the sound of fat raindrops. A bone snapped, crunched, was sucked down.

And with every breath it could spare, the thing let loose a short, warbling cackle.

She folded her ears against her head, unable to listen anymore. Slinking on her hands and feet, she slid into the underbrush, leaving the sikkhun to its gruesome feast.

Yes, she thought without willing, so gruesome. Good thing you’re about to do something as civil as murdering your companions, you weak little-

She folded her ears further, shutting them to all sounds, within and without, as she softly crept away.

*

Tracks told stories.

This was the accepted thought amongst her people. A person spoke to the earth through his feet, unable to lie or hide through his soles. The earth had a long memory, remembered what it was told. Earth remembered. Earth told shict. Shict remembered.

Kataria remembered finding his tracks in the forest, almost a year ago.

Long, slow strides, she recalled, heavy on the heels and the toes alike. He was a man who walked in two different directions: striving to go forward, always held back.

She had tracked him, then, certain that she was going to kill him. She tracked him now, certain that she had to.

And what’s different this time?she asked herself. You went after him, attempting to kill him. You wound up following him for a year.

Because, she told herself, that was a time when she did not know what it was to be a shict. This time, she knew. She would prove it.

She had found their tracks shortly after. The earth was moist and dry at once, torn between whether it wished to continue living or not. It made the stories hard to hear. Those she recognised in the tracks were simple tales: anguish, pain, misery, confusion, hunger. But those were common enough, especially to those humans she had once called companions.

No matter. They all had to die, eventually. The other humans would be a nice warm-up before she stalked and killed her true quarry. She would have liked to have started with Lenk, though, suspecting that he would be the hardest to kill. He was the most agitated, the most paranoid, the most cautious.

Oh, andthat’s why he’s going to be hard to kill?she asked herself. Right. He’s justso crafty and clever. This entire ‘stalking’ is a farce. If you showed up in front of him and waved, he’d wave back and smile and say how good it was to see you as you clubbed his brains out.

No, she told herself, he liked her, but probably not thatmuch.

Right, she agreed with herself, but the point is, you know this is just a stalling tactic. Pretending to stalk him? Pretending to track him? Go run around the forest screaming his name if you think he’s alive. Wait for him to come out and then embrace him and then crush his neck. If youreally wanted to kill him, you wouldn’t even have to try. But …

She snarled inwardly, opened her ears wide to let the sounds of the forest drown out her own thoughts.