Dragon's Hunt by Elise Night

Author:Elise Night [Night, Elise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798628394939
Published: 2020-03-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Rain beat a staccato song against the broad leaves overhead, trickling a chorus down the vines and trunks. Tiny rivers cut through the soil, swallowing the tracks of the patrolling villagers into the muddy swamp. Living among such a verdant mountain jungle was a rare luxury in the modern, space-dependent Common, but it also came with a price. During the rainy season villagers were always at risk of losing homes, crops, and livestock to flooding, as well as the subsequent insect infestations. The excessive rain also made ambushing intruders a complete pain in the arse.

Z and Indira had each taken posts atop small viewing platforms hidden high among the trees, and camouflaged themselves inside cocoons of leaves. Not more than a few meters apart, the two platforms straddled the most likely path the S-corp soldiers would take to the village. They silently laid on their bellies, waiting to make their kill, which would never come if Indira continued to loudly shift in her hole, broadcasting the sour scent of her panic and anxiety to the entire blasted jungle.

What are you doing, lass? I can smell you from over here! Z hissed through the comm chip.

A soft thwack sounded from her platform. The headless body of a long black snake dropped out of her cocooned hole, immediately followed by its severed head.

I’ve discovered that I hate the jungle, Indira growled through their link. This place isn’t beautiful. It’s a deathtrap of tiny crawling things with more legs than I can count, and things that slither with more teeth than I can count!

I’ll remind Roo t’ teach you t’ count higher, Z said, trying his best to keep his chuckles silent.

Very funny. If I don’t get something to kill soon, then I’m going to…

The leaves of her shelter rustled gently, and then abruptly stopped.

Indi?

Stop calling me that, she quickly replied. Are the big yellow spiders with brown spots on their back poisonous?

Z smiled to himself. No.

Oh, well, he’s dead anyway, she said. Zeus, we’ve been out here for three hours and the only things needing killing have been the wildlife. I think your friend might be paranoid.

Z was beginning to think the same himself. The crisp, clean air should have been the perfect environment to scent intruders, but all he could smell was the wet jungle and the familiar traces of the villagers. Through the years, Z had spent enough time in and around the village to know it well, and absolutely nothing was out of place.

He drew the scent of the jungle deep into his lungs, letting his nose and tongue catalog every nuance in the air. Seven elderly villagers lay in their huts, surrounded by the scent of old age and impending death. Ripe fruit, damp soil, and thousands of creatures littered the jungle. Six men, sweating nervously and stinking of fear, surrounded the small village in the clearing behind him. Their metal weapons and cleaning oil hung in the air—

They’re coming, Z quickly said.

He scanned the empty path, surrounding trees, and the saturated ground, but nothing had changed.

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