The Alpha’s name functioned as an icy blast, but Urazi tried to lighten the mood. “If we did not have
mis
fortune, we would not have any fortune.”
Her giggle transmitted a spiral of heat into his loins. Parseons by nature were a sober race, not prone to merriment. Children laughed, of course, but soon learned the inappropriateness of such behavior or risked the lash. An unfettered expression of joy or humor occurred rarely, and it was odder still that a laugh would evoke concupiscence. But then, everything Anika did affected him thusly— the way she licked her lips when she ate, how she tilted her head, when she planted her fists on her hips and glared him in obstinacy. Especially then.
Urazi forced himself to focus. Though they faced uncertainty, they needed to prepare themselves. “Perce’s paternity presents a threat, to be sure, but also a greater opportunity,” he said.
“I understand the threat, but I do not see the opportunity.” Anika peered at him. “Do you weary of guiding the beasts yet?”
Under normal circumstance driving the conveyance did not require physical strength, only alertness to keep the animals on the road and guide them around obstacles. However, if the beasts scented a dam, no bit or bridle could prevent them from charging. Even an Alpha’s strength could not restrain a beast under such conditions. Fortunately, mating season had passed.
At least for the beasts.
Urazi’s nostrils flared as he inhaled Anika’s scent. Like flowers after a rain. And between her legs? He stifled a groan. The sweetest musk he’d ever known.
He passed the reins before he lost concentration and crashed the conveyance. Their fingers brushed, and he surrendered to the urge to hold her hand for a second. Her tiny gasp of awareness caused him to suck in a lungful of air. He pictured them exchanging the reins back and forth so they could touch. A dangerous game. One of them would drive the beasts into an icy river or into a mountainside. He gripped the edge of the seat.
“And what of the opportunity?” she asked.
“Opportunity?” He blinked.
“You were talking about Perce.”
Urazi frowned. He did not recall.
“Being Qalin’s son?” she prompted.
Of course. Such was the depth of his preoccupation, he could not remember what he said from one moment to the next. “As Qalin’s son, he is a member of the Alpha’s inner circle. Perce’s acceptance of us may bring us closer to Qalin.”
She shuddered—a typical reaction to the Alpha. A glimpse of his malevolent visage sent alphas fleeing in terror. Sires used his name to motivate their sons to excellence. “
If you fail in your training, I will send you to serve Qalin
,” Urazi’s own sire used to say. When small children told tales of monsters to frighten each other, it was Qalin’s name they evoked.
“We shall not hide,” she murmured.
“No.” To duck into the dark corners of Qalin’s province while the Alpha rampaged through Parseon would serve neither honor nor self-interest. There would be nothing to return to when the war ended. They—
he
, for he would not permit Anika to fight—had a chance to alter the course of the war. Perhaps end it. But at a grave cost.
Sacrifice of the one for the benefit of the many.
Anika met his eyes. “We are going to kill Qalin.” A statement. They thought along similar lines, except for one thing.
“Not us. Me,” Urazi said.
“You cannot fight Qalin alone. You will need help.”
Help? He doubted an entire guard force would be sufficient. It hadn’t been for Commander Dak. And for a lone beta with nothing but determination and a dagger? Suicide. Even if he managed to get within striking range, odds of victory were almost nonexistent. The Alpha would be guarded, fortified. If Urazi did succeed in mortally wounding him, his guards would put an abrupt end to Urazi’s life. Or would torture him.
Anika wouldn’t like what he had to say, but she needed to face the truth. “If”—
when—
“I die, you must return to Marlix or to Ilian for protection.”
“You are not going to die, and I would never go to Ilian.”
“
You must
.”
How could he do what he needed to if, in the end, she was not safe?
“I won’t!”
Temper erupted out of fear, frustration. “You will do it, or I will administer the sudon to your bare buttocks.”
“You do not
have
a sudon. And how are you going to do it if you’re dead?”
Her taunting, irrefutable logic increased his fury. “I will spank you beforehand then.”
“I would like to see you try!” Her chin jutted out. Her challenge goaded him to kiss the brazenness off her face before stripping a switch from a denuded tree.
Let her think she had won the argument. The discipline, when it occurred, would be that much more satisfying. Urazi stared into her challenging eyes for a moment longer, and then dropped his gaze as if he conceded the battle.
A smirk twitched at the corner of her mouth.
He smothered a grin of anticipation
. Just you wait, little one. Just you wait
.
Chapter Fourteen
Two days later
A
cachinna
alighted atop the front wall of the conveyance, bobbing its head from side to side as if studying them through its reflective eyes. In a debate over which creature was more repulsive—cachinna or drakor—one could make a good argument for the disgusting insect. Along the harrowing mountain road, they’d encountered several, though none as audacious as this one.
Urazi lifted his foot and aimed his boot at the carrion beetle, but it flew away with a cachinnating buzz before he could crush it.
“Missed!” he said. “Just as well. We would have smelled it the rest of the journey.”
Anika wrinkled her nose and nodded.
The beetles grew large, about double the size of an acca nut, and, when smashed, they emitted a rank odor much like the sickening-sweet smell of the rotting flesh they consumed.
“I hate those things.” Anika’s mouth turned downward. “I do not like to think about those insects feeding on my body after I am dead.”
“Agreed.”
The conveyance squeaked and groaned as the huffing beasts pulled it up the steep grade, the mountain’s edge only meters to the left of their wheels. Deep in the canyon below—too far to even see—an icy river flowed. He shifted on the seat, itching to assume control of the reins. Anika handled them competently, but that did little to soothe his fear of plunging into the abyss or facing what existed on the other side of the mountain.
Once they descended the ridge, they would enter Qalin’s province.
“Cachinna are not even a native species!” she complained.
After multitudes died in the Great Plague spread by the disease-carrying drakor, Parseon could not keep up with cremation. To prevent the further spread of illness, Parseon imported an alien species of insect, which fed off the decaying flesh of Parseonoid species. A small swarm of cachinna could pick a body clean in minutes. “Cachinna serve a function,” Urazi said, and jerked his gaze from the ravine to focus on the conveyance ahead. Nervous sweat beaded, despite the chill. “Especially in time of war,” he added. Better to talk about the noxious, disgusting beetle than to focus on the steep drop. If something happened to startle the beasts…. “That is probably why we are seeing more of them now.”
“Well, I wish they would go back to the planet they came from!”
“I do, too.” The insects’ consumption of decaying flesh did not bother him as much as a ludicrous a notion that cachinna possessed intelligence. The last one had cocked its head like it was committing Urazi’s face to memory.
Your day will come. I will be back for you
. And its buzz! Urazi shuddered. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear it was a laugh.
Anika glanced at him. “I am glad you are riding with me.”
“I thought you could use the company.” Not a lie, but not the truth either. When they entered Qalin’s territory, Urazi wanted to stay near. He’d leaped aboard her conveyance first thing that morning, rather than joining Luka in accordance with the rotation schedule. The beta wasn’t happy about it, but he could not challenge an alpha.
From the wagon bed, a cry arose from the females. Anika could not investigate because she held the reins, so Urazi twisted around. “What is going on back there?” he shouted above the clatter.
One of the females pointed to a rapidly approaching black cloud.
“Monto!” he swore. “Take cover!” he yelled at the females. “Use that!” He gestured to a tarpaulin used as a night shelter. Two breeders scrambled over the others to unroll it, stretch it out.
“What is it?” Anika cried, and the beasts veered left as she lost focus and loosened one tether.
Urazi snatched the reins from her hands. Over the thunder of hooves rose the sound of laughter.
Anika’s expression turned horrified. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes. It is a swarm of cachinna.”
The words had no sooner left his mouth before they were enveloped in a sickeningly sweet, black cloud of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of noxious, laughing beetles. He could feel the breeze generated by the furious beating of wings as the cachinna kept pace with the conveyance. The overpowering stench threatened to gag him. Anika squealed and tugged her uniform shirt to cover her mouth and nose.
Urazi braced his feet against the floorboard and wrapped the reins around his fists.
Keep the beasts on the road. Just keep them on the road.
Cachinna streamed over the top of the conveyance and around the sides, filling the air space in front of them. Beetles dove at their faces. The beasts’ antlers turned a shimmering black with roosting cachinna. Urazi could feel the frightened animals fighting the bit, and he yanked with all his might on the reins.
A single cachinna hovered a finger’s length from Urazi’s face and waved its antennae, but he could do nothing except smell the insect, catalog every spiky hair on its ugly, glistening body. The same cachinna from before? The idea was as crazy as the notion the insect knew he found it revolting and taunted him. Then it laughed and zipped into the horde.
Finally, the swarm buzzed ahead and enveloped the next conveyance. So thick were the cachinna, Urazi lost sight of the second transport, but heard the females aboard scream, Luka shout, and the beasts squeal. Seconds later, the beast-drawn conveyance broke through the black cloud of insects and plunged over the mountainside. The swarm divided, half pursuing the conveyance into the ravine, the rest surging toward Perce’s transport.
Beside him, Anika clapped her hand over her mouth. Tears streamed from her eyes.
The cachinna enveloped Perce’s conveyance but he managed to maintain control of the beasts, and the cachinna flew away with an angry buzz.
Urazi clung to the reins, using all his strength to keep his beasts hugging the mountain.
“All those people.” Anika wept. “There must have been thirteen breeders in the conveyance. And Luka. Dead. They’re all dead.”
Murdered by the cachinna—as if the insects had worked together to spook the beasts and force the vehicle off the road. Urazi’s team began to slow as the animal’s panic subsided.
Anika touched his arm. “You did well to control the beasts. I do not think I would have been able to do so.”
He shook his head, unable to accept her praise. “I believe it was more luck than strength or skill that saved us.”
“I have never encountered a swarm before,” she said.
“Neither have I.” Cachinna would teem over a body until it appeared solid black, but he had never known the beetles to travel en mass. Never known them to deliberately cause a death so they could feed. A horrifying idea.
“I wish I knew what had attracted the swarm,” Anika said.
* * * *
Sometimes it was better not to know, Anika concluded.
She and Urazi had descended the mountain quiet and sober, the lone conveyance ahead of them an ever-present reminder of the calamitous loss. Solemnity transformed to horror anew when they entered Qalin’s province. On both sides of the road, a wall of yellow-white bones stretched as far as her eye could see.
Animals
.
Let them belong to animals.
But when she forced herself to make a closer autopsy, the shape of the skulls, the bloodstained alpha-gray, beta-brown, and even breeder-beige uniforms still attached to the skeletons dashed any such hope. The bones belonged to Parseons.
She wished she could crawl under the tarp where the other females had hidden, but honor would not allow it. For whatever atrocity had afflicted these Parseons, they deserved to have their deaths noticed. She swallowed. “This is what drew the cachinna that swarmed our conveyances.”
“Yes.” Tension bracketed Urazi’s mouth.
As the road narrowed and the conveyance rolled so close to the macabre wall she could lean out and touch it, she spied a few stray carrion beetles pulling at clumps of tissue clinging to the skeletal remains. Anika flung herself sideways and vomited.
When she righted, Urazi handed her the water bag. She tipped her head back, poured a stream into her mouth, swished, and spat outside the conveyance.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I will work through it.” Anika took a deep breath and exhaled, trying block the wall from her line of sight. Females learned early in life how to “guard their gaze,” to avoid seeing that which they were not supposed to observe. The skill served her in good stead now.
“What could have caused so many deaths?” Tens of thousands? Her body knew. The answer lay in her rigid muscles, in the cold sweat dampening her nape. In something worse than cachinna.
“Qalin.” Urazi confirmed her worst suspicion. “From the numbers, I would surmise most are ‘enemy combatants’ killed and stolen from the battlefield, but many others are dissidents or those he perceived as defective. I suspect he is cleansing his province.”
“So he dragged their bodies here and dumped them?”
“To warn others who might challenge his rule.”