Oh, that felt good. I missed fighting. The only Xathi warrior left thrashed around on the ground, two of its legs shattered thanks to my sweetheart of a hammer. The others laughed, but this is exactly why I made her. She crushed, shattered, and destroyed almost everything she touched, and that was her entire purpose. She felt good in my hands, and the reverberation I felt when she made contact with a Xathi body brought me shivers.

I looked down at the remaining Xathi, staying just out of its reach. Even with two broken legs and unable to walk, these things were dangerous. I knelt down in front of it. It stopped thrashing around and turned its head towards me, an almost calm expression on its face.

“I know about your connection to your little queen back home, so I know she’s hearing this, or whatever it’s called. If you can understand my words, then you should know that there is nothing that is going to stop me from getting you and breaking you into tiny little pieces.”

The Xathi tilted its head slightly and chittered at me, almost as if it was talking to me.

I shook my head at it. “I don’t understand your little bug noises, but I know you understand me. I’m coming for you, plain and simple.”

It kept chittering at me, then made a hellish, awkward noise. It took several seconds before I realized that it was laughing at me. I stood up and smiled as my hammer crashed down onto its head, again and again until there was almost nothing left of its upper torso. Wiping blood, other fluids, and shards of shell off me, I spat on the leftovers and surveyed the scene.

There was a body missing. I searched the area. Nothing. When I looked at the tracks the refugees left behind, I noticed Xathi tracks. “Chi ko rhom ne damn dele!!!” I cursed. One had gotten away from me, and followed Leena and the others. I took off after them. I wanted to run, but I had to go at a fast walk to make sure I didn’t miss the tracks and go the wrong way.

The tracks headed deeper into the trees, but away from where I had told Leena to take them. Srell. Where in the Abyss were they going? The Xathi’s tracks were spread out, as if it was stalking the refugees. After nearly a mile, I found a body. One of the older humans must have fallen behind. He never stood a chance against the Xathi; his torso was ripped open from shoulder to hip.

I said a quick Valornian chant in his honor and continued. Two hundred yards from the body was a broken kodanos and dozens of dead talusians, more of the lethally dangerous flora and fauna of this cursed planet.

Srell. The Xathi were the only things strong enough to have broken the tree and killed that many of its swarm with ease.

I picked up the pace until, a half mile later, I found them. Only a few of the humans were there. Leena stood in front of a little girl.

A Xathi stood before them, chittering at the group.

Double srell.

The trees blocked my way, leaving only the trail for me to walk on. I was at a bad angle, it would see me coming long before I got there, and if it decided to attack Leena, it would get to her first.

Trying to be as quiet as I could, I crept closer, hoping that it would keep its attention on Leena and the little girl long enough for me to get close. It kept chittering at her, she kept cursing at it, while I kept creeping up slowly, and the other humans stood still, panicked into immobility.

The Xathi must have realized that the chittering was doing nothing, because it stepped forward with a shriek. I jumped into action, yelling out a battle cry. The Xathi ignored me and swiped at Leena, knocking her to the ground.

Everything went red. Leena was hurt, that thing stood over her, and the little girl screamed…

In an instant, I’d tackled the Xathi, knocking it away from them. I rolled off it, gained my feet, and put myself between it and them. It got to its feet, pointed at me, and started chittering. Not bothering to wait, I jumped, swinging my hammer.

I made contact with one of its shoulders with a very audible crack. It knocked me away with a shot to the chest. I blocked another swipe, ducked under a third, and rolled towards it, bringing my hammer straight up. I caught it in the chin, sending it reeling backwards. I took advantage and ducked under another swing, then swung again myself. I made contact, and continued to make contact, over and over. Everything went away.

Until Leena yelled at me, telling me it was over. I looked down in front of me, and saw that she was right…it was over. There was virtually nothing left of the bug, but I didn’t care. I turned back towards Leena, and she was staring at me as she hugged the little girl to her. The girl was crying, and when she looked at me, she let out a little shriek and tried to get under and behind Leena.

“Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay. He’s a friend. He was just trying to make sure the bad bug didn’t hurt us anymore.” Her voice was gentle. Soothing. It made me feel something inside I wasn’t sure of. Then she looked at me and flashed me that signature look of hers. “Did you really have to go crazy? What the hell is wrong with you?” She turned back to the little girl, and tried to soothe her.

I looked over at the few humans who had stuck around, and realized they were all wounded, or old. One of them came over to me. It was an older woman, and she pulled out a small piece of fabric. “You’re a mess, young man.” She cleaned me up, spitting on the rag before wiping my face. Any time I tried to pull away, she glared at me, and pulled me back down to her level. I could see Leena grinning from ear to ear as she kept trying to calm the little one down.

As the old woman finished up, she patted me on the chest, flashed me a small smile, and walked back, ordering one of them to get the others.

I walked over to Leena and asked. “Who’s that?”

“Not completely sure, but she’s definitely in charge of the group.”

“That’s right.” We both jumped. We hadn’t heard her walk up. “My name is Vidia. I am, I mean, I was the mayor of Fraga. The few of us you rescued are all that’s left…I think. The rest of the town was captured when the Xathi attacked this morning.”

I extended my hand to her. She shook it with a solid grip. Impressive for a human. “Vidia. My name is Axtin, and this is Leena. We were on our way to you with some new weapons to fight the Xathi. I’m sorry we didn’t get there in time.”

She looked me up and down, visibly trying to figure me out. With a nod, she responded to my comment. “Apology accepted, young man. You’re one of those alien fellows we’d heard about.” It was a statement, not a question. She continued before I could respond. “From the looks of things, you’ve been fighting them for a while, and you look like you’re fairly honest, when it matters. What do we do now?”

I thought about that for a minute. “How many are you?”

“If you’re asking my age, that’s a terrible touch of grammar. If you’re asking how many of my people are left, I don’t have an exact count; but I’m guessing it’s a few dozen over a hundred. Lots of kids, lots of hurt people, too.”

Leena answered. “Yeah, we saw that. That’s why we stepped in when we did.” She looked up at me. “Ideas?”

“There’re too many wounded to make it back to Duvest quickly, although that’s probably the safer choice. We’re too far away from the Vengeance to make it there without being attacked again. Duvest is our best choice. It’ll take us about a day with the number of wounded, elderly, and children in the group.”

Leena, still holding on to the little girl and singing to her quietly, looked at Vidia. “What do you think?”

“Is there anywhere for us to spend the night? No one’s going to want to stay in the open for the night after what just happened. I mean, you could probably kill everything that comes at us, but I’m not sure the rest have as much faith in you as I do.”

I knew I liked this woman for a reason. I smiled.

“Anyone that’s crazy and stupid enough to rush into a pack of those…things…and come out of it alive with only a few scratches, they’re okay in my book.”

“Thank you, Vidia. I’ll be honest, though, I’m not entirely sure if there’s anything big enough for this many people,” I indicated the refugees who were returning as we spoke. “At least, none that I know of, butI am relatively new to this world of yours.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Leena put up her hand. “Hi. Still here if you two want to hear my ideas.”

With a chuckle, I nodded in apology. Vidia smiled and took a half-step back, motioning Leena to continue.

With a quick roll of the eyes, Leena told the little girl, again, that I was a good guy, then looked at us. “I know of a place we can go…it’s big enough for all of us, and if hero here doesn’t mind a little bit of heavy lifting, it’s easy to close up so we’ll be safe.” She smiled at me when she said ‘hero’. I smiled her a promise back.

Vidia chuckled at us, mumbling something about hormones, as she turned to look at her people.